Pentagon Selects Scale AI to Support AI-Driven Military Planning, Decision-Making
The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has selected California-based Scale AI to lead a project that will harness artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance military planning, decision-making, and operations.
Named Thunderforge, the initiative will integrate AI-powered modeling and simulation tools to rapidly process vast amounts of information, accelerating decision-making and theater-level planning.
Additionally, it will facilitate AI-driven wargaming to help soldiers anticipate and respond to evolving threats.
“Thunderforge marks a decisive shift toward AI-powered, data-driven warfare, ensuring that US forces can anticipate and respond to threats with speed and precision,” the DIU stated.
“By leveraging advanced large language models, AI-driven simulations, and interactive agent-based wargaming, Thunderforge will enhance how the US military prepares for and executes operations.”
The Thunderforge solution will initially be deployed with the US Indo-Pacific Command and US European Command (USEUCOM) before expanding to other combatant commands.
‘Pushing the Frontier Forward’
Thunderforge program lead Bryce Goodman explained that current military planning processes rely heavily on “decades-old technology and methodologies.”
This has reportedly created a “fundamental mismatch” between the speed of modern warfare and the military’s ability to respond.
With Thunderforge, military planners and decision-makers will be equipped to operate at the pace required for emerging conflicts.
“Thunderforge is a next step in this effort and will allow the US to keep pushing the frontier forward in terms of leveraging emerging technologies to modernize organizational efficiency,” USEUCOM chief of staff Maj. Gen. Peter Andrysiak added.
In addition to mission-critical planning activities, potential applications for the new AI solution include campaign development, theater-wide resource allocation, and strategic assessments.
Scale AI will join forces with Anduril, Microsoft, and other unnamed global subcontractors to execute the project.
