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MILITARY AI START-UPS ARE ON THE BIG BOOM, THANKS TO THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

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The CEO of data analytics firm Palantir, Alexander Karp, addressed European politicians precisely two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. He stated in an open letter that since the war was imminent, Europeans needed Silicon Valley’s assistance to update their arsenals. According to Karp, countries in Europe must embrace “the relationship between technology and the state, between disruptive companies that aim to loosen the hold of established contractors and the federal government ministries with funding” if they want to “remain strong enough to defeat the threat of foreign occupation.”

The call is being answered by the military. The creation of a $1 billion innovation fund by NATO was announced on June 30. The fund would invest in early-stage businesses and venture capital firms that are working on “priority” technologies such as automation, big data processing, and artificial intelligence. The Germans have set aside little under half a billion within a $100 billion budget infusion to the military for research and artificial intelligence since the conflict began, while the UK has created a new AI policy exclusively for defense. ...

AI war chest

The push for greater AI in defense has grown louder and louder over the past few years as the Maven issue fades into history. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who served as the NSCAI’s head, has been one of the most vocal in his calls for the US to embrace military AI more quickly. The NSCAI urged the US military to invest $8 billion annually in these technologies or risk falling behind China in a study published last year detailing actions the US could take to catch up to China in AI by 2025.

A Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technologies research estimates that the Chinese military invests at least $1.6 billion yearly in AI. According to Lauren Kahn, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, there is already a significant push to catch up in the US. The US Department of Defense requested $874 million for AI in 2022, according to research published in March 2022, even if that amount does not cover all of the department’s AI initiatives.

See the full story here: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/military-ai-start-ups-are-on-the-big-boom-thanks-to-the-russia-ukraine-war/