Free story: Pentagon's Silicon Valley outfit seeks to shift from 'experimental' to 'transformative'

The Pentagon’s outpost in Silicon Valley has spent the past five years working with commercial start-up companies to prototype new capabilities for the Defense Department, varying from short-range recon drones to automated cyber vulnerability detection for weapon systems.

The Defense Innovation Unit has initiated dozens of prototyping efforts with nontraditional defense contractors over the past five years. But when the opportunity comes to move beyond experimentation to more expensive, long-term contracts, the Pentagon often balks.

Inside Defense visited DIU’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA, to speak with officials there about their successes and challenges in developing “transformative” capabilities for the U.S. military.

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