The U.S. Army has launched a new program called “Army FUZE” to speed up the development of cutting-edge technologies for soldiers. The program will use a venture capital-style model to invest in promising tech companies. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said, “With Fuze, the Army is telling innovators that we’re open for business.
Fuze will help us not only invest but scale promising capabilities — bridging the valley of death.”
The program will allow the Army to find technology that helps them think about problems in new ways. Matt Willis, the Army’s Fuze program director, said, “We’re really taking the approach where we’re going to deliberately make a large number of investments in emerging tech companies.”
Fuze will combine four existing funding streams worth about $750 million in fiscal 2025. The Army plans to kick off the program with a live pitch competition at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference next month.
Army aims to accelerate innovation
The competition will focus on electronic warfare, unmanned aircraft systems, counter-UAS, and energy resiliency at the edge. The prize pool is $500,000.
Technologies that win the competition will go directly to soldiers in the field for real-world testing. The Army hopes to have a capability to an acquisition pathway in 10 days, and a first prototype with an Army unit within 30 to 45 days. The Army has struggled to keep up with the fast pace of technology, especially in areas like electronic warfare.
Brandon Pugh, the Army’s cyber adviser, said, “It’s so quickly evolving, you have to be able to acquire this quickly and iterate quickly, or else you’re instantly behind, even if you do successfully acquire it.”
Army officials stressed that Fuze is not just a bureaucratic reshuffling, but a strategic effort to coalesce innovation programs and help companies move through the pipeline more quickly. The end goal is to get the best technology to soldiers as fast as possible.
