Transforming the Defense Innovation Ecosystem to Accelerate Warfighting Advantage, Memorandum : Department of Defense , January 9 , 2026
Transforming the Defense Innovation Ecosystem to Accelerate Warfighting Advantage, Memorandum : Department of Defense , January 9 , 2026
From the document: "We must transform how the Department fights, buys, and builds. We have replaced legacy requirements processes with a system connecting operational problems directly to resources. We have created empowered Portfolio Acquisition Executives with real authority and accountability. We are executing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy to make this Department an Al-first warfighting force, embracing modular architectures and continuous test and evaluation that enable technology insertion at the speed of relevance.
Yet our innovation ecosystem remains a tangle of overlapping organizations and confused authority - workarounds built to bypass now-obsolete systems. Multiple organizations fight for the same mission. Industry faces a maze of competing front doors. Councils proliferate while accountability diffuses. This dysfunction stems from a linear model that gates progress through sequential stages as if technology matured on a predictable conveyor belt. That model never reflected reality and is now dangerous to mission accomplishment, fiscal responsibility, and the warfighter. Speed and adaptation win.
Today, we end the confusion. The intent and policy are simple: unify the innovation ecosystem led by a single Chief Technology Officer (CTO) tasked to modernize the Department and align innovation organizations around outcomes that matter for the warfighter. Effective immediately, the Defense Innovation Steering Group, the Defense Innovation Working Group, and the CTO Council are disestablished. In their place, the CTO will convene a CTO Action Group to assist him in making decisions, clear bureaucratic blockers, hold leaders accountable - and most impo11antly - quickly deliver new innovations to our warfighters. No more acquisition organizations treating innovation as someone else's job."
Authors - Secretary of DefenseRelated Resources
