DIU to scale commercial tech adoption

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) announced on June 20 it is beginning the strategic allocation of the $983M budget for fiscal year 2024, signed into law at the end of March.

This spending plan is the result of a rapid, rigorous planning effort with partners across the Department of Defense (DoD), including the Services, Combatant Commands, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Staff. The plan is designed to advance the “DIU 3.0” strategy directed by the Secretary of Defense—expanding and accelerating the delivery of commercial technology to the warfighter with the focus, speed, and scale required for strategic effect—in line with Congressional intent. The DIU team will continue close coordination with Congress during the execution of these funds.

“We are grateful for Congress’ confidence in our mission and are working closely with our partners across the Department to deliver on the imperative facing us to harness the very best of commercially derived technology for our strategic priorities,” said DIU Director Doug Beck. “DIU’s FY24 spending is concentrated on closing the U.S. military’s most critical operational capability gaps with the focus, speed, and scale required to help us deter major conflict or win if forced to fight.”

DIU’s budget will be allocated across four categories designed to:

• Accelerate vital, ongoing projects: A major share of the budget, approximately 50%, will go toward expanding and accelerating the most strategic areas of project activity, such as uncrewed system initiatives (including the current all-domain attritable autonomous focus of the Replicator effort), contributions to the Joint Fires Network, critical initiatives in commercial space, cyber, energy, and human systems, and programs advancing operational logistics capability across contested areas.
• Initiate new, critical lines of effort: Roughly 25% of the budget will support DIU’s launch of new projects in strategic areas. These include counter-unmanned aerial systems, space transport, advanced manufacturing, and critically, cross-cutting software and other complementary capabilities. Such advancements will enable integrated and resilient operation of complex, heterogeneous, multidomain autonomous systems in highly challenging current and future battlefield environments.
• Bolster strategic initiatives led by partners in the Defense Innovation Community of Entities (DICE): About 15% of spending will be used to help accelerate work pioneered by other members of the DoD’s innovation community and partnerships with other DoD teammates.
• Break down systemic barriers to capability adoption at scale: About 10% of spending will be focused on efforts such as the expansion of regional outreach capabilities through the expanding network of Defense Innovation OnRamp Hubs across the country, increased portfolio and cybersecurity support for small and nontraditional vendors, and access to physical and digital ranges for testing and evaluation.

While DIU has already begun putting the FY24 budget into action, with Congressional oversight, over the next few months, DIU expects to release more than a dozen solicitations for new projects, leveraging our Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) process. Companies interested in competing for contract awards should monitor the DIU website and social media for new solicitations, or subscribe to the solicitation notification newsletter.

Importantly, the FY24 budget will help DIU bolster the Department’s partnerships with tech-focused companies and investors, one of the pillars of its DIU 3.0 strategy. In addition to continuing to deepen the dual fluency talent that DIU deploys through its technology portfolios, this means expanding all aspects of its commercial operations.  Examples include clarifying the demand signal coming from the Department, removing barriers and enhancing support to portfolio company scaling, expanding support and resources for existing Defense Innovation OnRamp Hubs and new expansion sites; and bolstering the broad range of National Security Innovation Network initiatives to activate defense innovation ecosystems.

Source: DIU

Stay in the know with breaking news from across the IC and IC contracting landscape by becoming a paid subscriber to IC News. Your support makes our work possible.