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The
rapid development of new technologies is forcing the Pentagon to
seek partnerships with the private sector rather than developing
its technology itself, defense officials say.
"I've been pushing the Pentagon to think outside our five-sided
box and invest in innovation here in Silicon Valley and in tech
communities across the country," Defense Secretary Ash Carter
said in prepared remarks on Friday.
"Now we’re taking another step forward."
The new technology aims to use high-end printing technologies to
create stretchable electronics that could be embedded with
sensors and worn by soldiers, a defense official said, and could
ultimately be used on ships or warplanes for real-time
monitoring of their structural integrity.
The U.S. government is contributing $75 million over five years,
he said, and companies, managed by the U.S. Air Force Research
Laboratory, will add $90 million, with local governments
chipping in more to take the total to $171 million.
Carter said the FlexTech Alliance comprised 162 companies,
universities and other groups, from Boeing, Apple and Harvard,
to Advantest Akron Polymer Systems and Kalamazoo Valley
Community College.
He was due to announce the award formally in a speech on Friday
at Moffett Federal Airfield, which is operated by NASA's Ames
Research Center near Mountain View, in Silicon Valley.
Carter visited California four months ago to create an outreach
office to forge ties with the tech community and will visit that
office on Friday.
The defense chief also plans to meet the Defense Science Board
for a briefing on a study it is doing on the level of autonomy
that military drones and robots should have in future.
The Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Hub,
which will be based in San Jose, is the seventh of nine such
institutes planned by the Obama administration in an effort to
revitalize several U.S. manufacturing sectors, several of them
defense-related.
The Pentagon's initial experience with the institutes was in
2012 when it established one to help develop 3-D printing.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)
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