The Pentagon plans to spend $1 billion over the next two years on its Replicator initiative to field thousands of attritable autonomous systems by August 2025, a senior official said on Monday.
While the Pentagon is not disclosing many specifics on Replicator as part of its fiscal year 2025 budget request rollout, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told reporters the department is looking to spend around $500 million in FY ‘24 and $500 million in FY ‘25 on the effort.
“That’s sort of the sum total of what we anticipate,” Hick said during a briefing on the department’s budget request.“Obviously, there are dollars associated with getting the actual thousands [of systems] on the 18-, 24-month timeline out the door.”
Hicks first announced the Replicator initiative last August, detailing the effort to produce and field thousands of “all-domain attritable autonomous systems, or ADA2 capabilities, over the next 18 to 24 months “to help us overcome [China’s] biggest advantage, which is mass” (Defense Daily, Aug. 28 2023).
Doug Beck, director of DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), confirmed last month the department has selected both currently-deployed systems and newer capabilities that have not yet been operationalized for Replicator (Defense Daily, Feb. 15).
“Replicator does not have a specific funding line. The FY 2025 Budget includes resources to boost the number of Replicator investments. Components have been asked to prioritize Replicator capabilities and systems given the relevant operational need,” the Pentagon writes in an FY ‘25 budget document.
While Congress has yet to pass FY ‘24 appropriations, DoD Comptroller Mike McCord said on Monday that Hicks has worked with lawmakers on getting Replicator-related funding into the final version of the defense budget.
McCord added that the department may have to look at reprogramming opportunities if Replicator funds are not part of the FY ‘24 defense spending bill, with the Pentagon having submitted a reprogramming request to Congress in late January (Defense Daily, Feb. 26).
Prior to the rollout of the Pentagon’s $849.8 Billion FY ‘25 budget request, a senior defense official told reporters it’s “still a bit of a work in progress” in terms of how much the department will publicly discuss Replicator plans, including funding lines and project details.
“I think if you cross over, you can’t come back. So, if we cross over on revealing things today, I can’t take that back. We have not crossed over in this rollout,” the official said. “It’s possible that we will revisit this decision to be more specific publicly about what projects there are, what level of funding there is. But for now, this is where we’ve landed.”