Department of Defense Narrows R&D Priorities List

The Department of Defense has pared its list of critical technology areas from 14 down to six, reflecting a desire to more quickly deliver applied technologies in a smaller number of priority areas.

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, who also serves as the department’s chief technology officer and acting director of the Defense Innovation Unit, said in a statement on Monday that the six CTAs are “not just priorities; they are imperatives.”

“The warfighter is not asking for results tomorrow; they need them today,” Michael said. “The American warfighter will wield the most advanced technology to maximize lethality.”

The six CTAs are:

• Applied artificial intelligence (AAI) to achieve “decision superiority” and embed AI into command-and-control systems.
• Biomanufacturing (BIO) to produce critical minerals at scale and reduce logistical vulnerabilities in unfavorable environments.
• Contested logistics technologies (LOG) to ensure troops have access to critical resources in difficult environments.
• Quantum and battlefield information dominance (Q-BID) to modernize communication and sensing technologies and continue effective operations in contested electromagnetic environments.
• Scaled directed energy (SCADE) to develop low-cost, high-impact solutions against emerging threats using high-energy laser and microwave technologies.
• Scaled hypersonics (SHY) to deliver Mach 5+ hypersonic weapons at scale.

The new list ditches some of the areas that were priorities during the Biden administration, such as renewable energy generation and storage and microelectronics, but keeps the original list’s focus on other areas, such as biotechnology, quantum science, and AI. It also puts a new emphasis on scaling directed energy and hypersonic technologies into mass production.

Earlier this year, Michael said in a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies for Defense conference that he did not want to continue what he saw as a trend of new CTOs adding new areas of interest to the list. “Eventually it would get [to an] endless number of critical technology areas,” he said, according to reporting by DefenseScoop.

“The idea is to concentrate back to a number that we really believe is critical. That doesn’t mean the things that are not on that list are not important, are not going to have effort and budget behind them. It just means this is actually important. So it’s a pyramid hierarchy, if you will,” Michael said at the conference. He also noted that he wanted to focus on things that can be delivered in the short term, leaving long-term innovations to DARPA and basic research to universities.

Trevor Tiedeman, director of strategic communications at the department’s research and engineering office, indicated in comments to Breaking Defense that some of the CTAs cut from the previous list will be incorporated into the new priority areas. “Previous CTAs, such as FutureG, Integrated Sensing and Cyber, and Quantum, are being consolidated and leveraged under the new Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance (Q-BID) portfolio,” Tiedeman said. He added that the principal directors responsible for the previous CTAs are not being reassigned out of R&E.

The 14 critical technology areas previously identified in the 2023 National Defense Science and Technology Strategy were organized as follows:

Seed areas of emerging opportunity

• Biotechnology
• Quantum science
• Future generation wireless technology (FutureG)
• Advanced materials

Effective adoption areas

• Trusted AI and autonomy
• Integrated network systems-of-systems
• Microelectronics
• Space technology
• Renewable energy generation and storage
• Advanced computing and software
• Human-machine interfaces

Defense-specific areas

• Directed energy
• Hypersonics
• Integrated sensing and cyber

The Department of Defense’s critical technology areas are distinct from the critical and emerging technologies (CTEs) identified by the National Science and Technology Council, but do have significant overlap. Both identify biotechnology, quantum science, AI, directed energy, and hypersonics as advanced technologies that are potentially significant to U.S. national security. The NSTC last updated its CTE list in February 2024.