As the US military embraces artificial intelligence and big data, the Pentagon is working to reduce its dependence on centralized mega-systems and instead empower frontline leaders at the “tactical edge.”
Last week, the Pentagon’s Chief Digital & AI Office (CDAO) awarded startup defense firm Anduril a $100 million, three-year contract to enhance its Lattice Mesh. Lattice is a system that allows frontline forces to quickly access data from over a hundred different types of sensors—such as tracking incoming hostile drones—using existing tactical networks, without the need to first process that data through central hubs.
This week, Anduril introduced a Lattice Software Development Kit (SDK) enabling other companies to create their own applications that run on Lattice Mesh, without needing permission from Anduril. The company announced an initial group of 10 partners, including startups like Apex (space systems) and Saronic (unmanned boats), as well as major corporations like Oracle and Textron. In the future, an Anduril executive told Breaking Defense, any company can access the kit and develop software for Lattice.
“We want to eliminate Anduril as a bottleneck and allow anyone to publish [apps and data] to the Lattice Mesh,” stated senior VP Thomas Keane. “The SDK now enables third parties to do this without depending on Anduril.”
This approach marks a decentralized business model for a military system that seeks decentralization. It also signifies a shift from traditional practices in both the defense industry and the Defense Department, which have historically favored centralized mega-projects where a single contractor can maintain “vendor lock” and exclude competitors for decades. However, the recent Lattice Mesh announcements indicate a move towards a more open, flexible, and adaptable strategy.
“If we know anything about the future, it’s that we don’t know much at all,” said CDAO Principal Deputy Margaret Palmieri. “Technology is evolving rapidly, the mission landscape is changing quickly, and the combinations of capabilities we need to integrate require the Department to be much more agile than in the past.”
In an unpredictable environment, Palmieri emphasized that military programs must rapidly incorporate new capabilities from whoever can deliver the best technology in the shortest time frame. (CDAO’s acquisition model for this initiative is formally known as Open DAGIR). The release of the SDK enables this adaptability for Lattice.
“We can utilize the data mesh backend that Anduril possesses, but we are not limited to using only Anduril applications,” she explained to Breaking Defense. “We can now invite third-party app developers from across the ecosystem, which offers us a tremendous advantage as a nation.”
What’s in it for Anduril? Although Keane didn’t explicitly state it, the company is betting that an open-door policy for Lattice Mesh will be beneficial for business, similar to how Apple thrives by allowing third parties to create applications for iPhones: More third-party options enhance the utility of the underlying product, leading to increased sales.
The C-3PO Approach What makes Lattice advantageous for the military is that it permits frontline units to access (or “subscribe to”) data feeds from various sensors, as explained by Keane and Palmieri. These sensors, operated by different organizations, communicate over diverse networks, and utilize incompatible formats; traditionally, the intelligence they gather needs to return to a central hub for processing before it can be widely disseminated. This lengthy process consumes valuable time that frontline forces may not possess and depends on long-range transmissions, communications satellites, and other relays that a capable adversary could jam or disrupt.
In contrast, Lattice Mesh provides frontline units with their own digital “translator” to directly communicate with different sensors. It resembles the golden droid C-3PO from Star Wars, “fluent in over six million forms of communication.” This allows data sharing “on the edge,” enabling numerous units to communicate with multiple sensors without the delays and vulnerabilities inherent in a centralized hub-and-spoke system.
Following several years of closed-door experimentation with CDAO and limited deployments at operational Combatant Commands, Lattice Mesh now supports translator algorithms for more than a hundred different sensor types, according to Keane, “and we are adding new ‘languages’ each week.”
By offering the Lattice SDK to third parties, Anduril allows other companies—such as drone manufacturers, satellite operators, and sensor producers—to create their own translators for their products. The more companies do this, the more types of sensors the military can leverage Lattice for.
This open-door, decentralized methodology is not specific to Lattice Mesh. In fact, Lattice is one component of the military’s evolving capability to share intelligence and transmit orders among US and allied forces across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace—known as Combined Joint All-Domain Command & Control (CJADC2).
Over time, the military has shifted away from a one-size-fits-all model for CJADC2. Instead of enforcing a single universal data
