Pentagon Expands Replicator Initiative

By Mike Stone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that it will add two new types of drones and more networking software to its ambitious Replicator initiative aimed at rapidly putting thousands of drones in the hands of the military.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said the Anduril Industries Ghost-X and the Performance Drone Works C-100 UAS were selected under the Replicator program to help fulfill the Army's Company-Level Small UAS effort.

The Replicator initiative, announced last year, is an ambitious effort to quickly muster and deploy large numbers of cheap drones by August 2025. The Pentagon has targeted spending $500 million annually on the plan to network and task thousands of inexpensive, smart combat drones for any future conflict.

The Replicator 1 initiative was designed to be a "pathfinder" for the Pentagon to quickly address complex challenges, a strategy that may be utilized by President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration to streamline defense acquisition.

A future second iteration of Replicator, dubbed Replicator 2, will tackle methods to defeat enemy drones.

Today's announcement pertains to the second tranche of purchases under the Replicator 1 initiative.

The first tranche included AeroVironment (NASDAQ:AVAV) Inc's Switchblade 600 loitering munition system uncrewed surface vehicles (USV), which can circle a target, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. It also encompassed uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) and counter-uncrewed aerial systems (c-UAS) of various sizes and payloads from several vendors.

Classified systems, including low-cost long-range strike capabilities, are also part of today's "Replicator 1.2" announcement, though specific details were not disclosed.