War Department 'SWAT Team' Removes Barriers to Efficient AI Development

View Online War Department 'SWAT Team' Removes Barriers to Efficient AI Development Jan. 12, 2026 |  By C. Todd Lopez Cameron Stanley will serve as the next Pentagon Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced today during an address at SpaceX headquarters in Starbase, Texas. The advancement of artificial intelligence within the War Department was a key focal point of the secretary's messaging to industry professionals at SpaceX.  Stanley, an Air Force veteran who recently served in the private sector, along with a team that includes some of the best and brightest who are also from the private sector, is most suited to help the War Department meet the AI goals President Donald J. Trump set in his executive order.  "This team will not only provide a catalyst for change in this department but will also act, we believe, as a magnet for other talented members of the tech community who want to join us in doing the mission-focused work to protect our great republic," Hegseth said.  Speed is at the forefront of what the CDAO team is expected to do, Hegseth said.  "Speed wins; speed dominates," Hegseth said. "[Stanley] and his team at CDAO will define AI deployment velocity metrics for all the pace-setting projects in the next 30 days, and report at least monthly after that. These will become the new benchmarks for programs across the department."  Another key to advancing AI within the War Department, Hegseth noted, is eliminating naysayers — those whose own work is meant to put barriers in the way of the work of those trying to speed AI to the battlefield.  "We will take a wartime approach to people and policies that block this progress," he said. "Barriers to data sharing, authority to operate ... test and evaluation and contracting are now treated as operational risks, not simply bureaucratic inconveniences; we are blowing up these barriers."  The secretary said he's established a "barrier removal SWAT team" within the Office of the Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering to make that happen. The team, he said, has the authority to waive nonstatutory requirements and escalate to the deputy secretary of war things that slow down the acceleration of AI capabilities.  AI systems require advanced hardware to run — computer power — and Hegseth said that's another pursuit of the new CDAO team. The War Department will pursue its own computing power on its own military installations.  "We will invest heavily in expanding our access to AI [computing power] from data centers to the tactical edge, and [we] will tap into hundreds of billions of dollars in private capital flowing into American AI," he said. "President Trump's executive order has directed us to build data centers on military land and to work with the Department of Energy to ensure that we dramatically increase the number and breadth of resources needed to power this computing infrastructure."  The secretary named a variety of private sector companies that may serve as partners to help the department get AI computer capabilities onto installations.  Modifications to hiring authorities, Hegseth said, will ensure the department has access to the best talent to advance its AI goals.  "We're going to heavily leverage President Trump's 'Tech Force' initiative to bring in the best and brightest from industry and academia," he said. "We have shown that we can and that we must enlist the world's leading talent in this cause."  Across government and the private sector, responsible AI is a driving force in the development of AI tools. And Hegseth said within the War Department, responsible AI means AI that understands the department's mission is warfighting, not the advancement of social or political ideology.  "I want to clarify what responsible AI means at the Department of War," he said. "Gone are the days of equitable AI, and other DEI and social justice infusions that constrain and confuse our employment of this technology. Effective immediately, responsible AI at the War Department means objectively truthful AI capabilities, employed securely and within the laws governing the activities of the department. We will not employ AI models that won't allow you to fight wars."  Finally, the secretary said, the department's pursuit of AI must include access to good data. The War Department and military services, he said, all have their own data assets, which, in many cases, are siloed. Hegseth said those silos will need to be opened.  "The U.S. military has an asymmetric data advantage from two decades of military and intelligence operations that no other military in the world can replicate," he said. "But right now, we are underutilizing this advantage. Too much of our data is stranded. It's stuck in bespoke programs, databases, locked behind [legal] stove pipes, invisible to operators, engineers and industry [partners] who can help us exploit it with winning speed and scale."  Now, he said, all that data will be unlocked for AI exploitation, with each service secretary and component head required to submit catalogs of current data assets to the CDAO within 30 days. Hegseth said this also includes data from the department's intelligence assets.  "Data hoarding is now a national security risk, and we will treat it that way," he said.  Last month, Hegseth announced GenAI.mil, a website that makes a specialized version of the Google AI tool Gemini — Gemini for Government — available to War Department personnel. Now, he said, GenAI will expand its AI offering.  "We're excited to announce the next frontier AI model company to join GenAI.mil, and that is Grok, from xAI, which will go live later this month," Hegseth said. "I want to thank you, Elon [Musk], and your incredible team, for leaning forward with us on this as well. Very soon, we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department — long overdue."

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