Pentagon chief Hegseth seeks $50 billion for autonomous systems — Defense News

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in Washington that the Pentagon is requesting approximately $50 billion in one-time funding to scale up autonomous and robotic systems. According to the department's plan, this should help increase stocks of autonomous weapons from thousands to millions of units, Defense News reports.

Separate one-time funding

Hegseth announced the request on October 14 during a Project Agincourt panel at the annual conference of the Association of the U.S. Army. According to him, this is a one-time investment rather than regular annual spending, intended to accelerate the development and production of autonomous and robotic systems.

The request for about $50 billion is separate from the Pentagon's budget request for fiscal year 2027. It allocates $53.6 billion for the Drone Dominance initiative, including $16.9 billion for procuring unmanned systems, $14.4 billion for counter-drone measures, $13.5 billion for logistics in contested environments, $4.5 billion for joint autonomy, and $4.3 billion for institutional systems and personnel.

At the same time, the 2027 budget request does not specify whether the funds named by Hegseth are the same funding or whether they will be fully directed toward drone procurement.

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Scaling up production

The secretary said the department is preparing to use hundreds of thousands of one-way attack systems as early as this year and millions of such systems in subsequent years. He also stressed the need to make it easier for new companies to enter the defense market, which is dominated by established contractors and expensive platforms.

The Army's Drone Dominance program includes a separate $1 billion initiative intended to fund approximately 340,000 small unmanned aerial systems for combat units over two years. The Army expects to deliver tens of thousands of drones in 2026 and hundreds of thousands in 2027.

Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle said the service is expanding access to its programs for companies outside the traditional defense industrial base. According to him, the Army is also developing an approach that combines drones, autonomous ground systems, autonomous fires systems, and autonomous transport systems in future operations.