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The Pentagon is pursuing a new initiative to produce thousands of attritable autonomous systems within the next 18 to 24 months, an effort to counter China’s continuing military build-up. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks announced the new “Replicator” initiative at the National Defense Industrial Association’s (NDIA) Emerging Technologies for Defense conference on Monday. “Replicator is meant to help us overcome [China’s] biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships. More missiles,” Hicks said. “We’ll counter the [Chinese military’s] mass with mass…
