Justin Fanelli, the US Department of Navy’s chief technology officer, has detailed a shift in the Navy's approach to technology acquisition. The Navy is moving away from funding early-stage research directly, instead aiming to co-invest alongside private capital.
This strategy involves acquiring products from more mature companies, typically those in Series D through F funding rounds. Fanelli stated that the Navy's total annual spending is in the region of $150 billion.
Recent acquisitions include a $562 million contract awarded this month for the MQ-25 Stingray, an autonomous refueling drone. The Navy has also procured edge compute hardware from Armada, used Gecko Robotics for inspection work, and implemented Domino Data Lab for its machine learning pipeline.
Fanelli also highlighted the replacement of a delayed defense contractor camera system with commercial cameras and Applied Intuition software, which reportedly cut approximately four years from the timeline. The Navy has shared an updated list of technology priorities, which includes applied AI, quantum information science, advanced networking, and electromagnetic spectrum operations.