00:00For your previous service, also your offer to serve once again.
00:05I also want to thank you and your families.
00:10It's sometimes forgotten that when you go on deployment or when you offer your service,
00:16the families also participate in that and that when you're away, they're without you.
00:22And we appreciate what it takes for that family to hang together and what it means to the entire family.
00:29So we thank all of you as well for the offer of your spouse or your family member here to participate in service to this country.
00:40So thank you all.
00:42Mr. Cowell, Mr. Dodd, and Mr. Ingram, I've heard from 28 senior DOD officials in hearings over the past two years,
00:51including the Secretary of Defense, every service chief, and eight combatant commanders,
00:58that sharing the 3.1 to 3.45 gigahertz band would have extremely deleterious and costly effects on our warfighting capabilities.
01:09The Department of the Navy alone estimates that relocating their systems to different spectrum band would cost them $250 billion.
01:19Secretary Hagseth has said that he would go to the mat when necessary for spectrum capabilities he believes are an absolute requirement for the DOD and men and women in uniform.
01:32Just simply because I want to make it very clear to everybody listening in how critical this is.
01:40If confirmed, Mr. Cowell, Mr. Dodd, and Mr. Ingram,
01:44if confirmed, will you fight to defend the Department of Defense's access to the use and maneuver within the electromagnetic spectrum at home and abroad?
01:55Mr. Cowell?
01:56Yes, Senator.
01:58Mr. Dodd?
01:59Yes, Senator.
02:00Mr. Ingram?
02:01Yes, Senator.
02:03I cannot overemphasize how critical it is with the use of spectrum and the need to protect our young men and women.
02:11There are parts of this which are used in our radar systems and in our communications.
02:15Literally, if we lose that, people die.
02:18And it is critical that we allow for the Department of Defense to have access to that portion of the spectrum for their needed defensive capabilities.
02:27Mr. Dodd, trusted artificial intelligence and assured access to the electromagnetic spectrum are both foundational to our ability to compete with China in future conflicts.
02:38How will you drive integration of AI into operational systems and what barriers to transition do you believe require the most urgent attention?
02:49Senator, thank you for the question.
02:50I think initially I would look to utilize some of the existing tools and authorities, if confirmed, that would exist inside of critical technologies.
02:59Section 217 clearly outlines the efforts within critical technologies to create those technology roadmaps with the services, with the unified combatant commands and influence and advocate an engagement with the services when they get into the program objective memorandum or the POM cycle for budgeting against those technology requirements.
03:21So they're getting heavily involved in there, and the impediments, which I think we're going to hear several times today, is this acquisition reform and the ability to utilize other transaction authorities and existing statutory authorities so that we can identify and acquire technologies at speed, relevance, and scale.
03:40And I think what you've indicated in terms of the challenge with regard to acquisitions is probably one of the most important things that we're going to have to do.
03:48I'm going to go to that next, but I just want to just, no question, artificial intelligence is here.
03:55It's here to stay.
03:57It's not going away.
03:59And it will either be used on us or we will use it to our advantage.
04:04Fair statement?
04:06Senator, absolutely.
04:08Mr. Ingram, the time it takes for the Army acquisition programs to reach operational use is simply incompatible with the pace of modern conflict.
04:19What reforms would you pursue to compress acquisition timelines, reduce risk aversion in procurement, and better leverage private sector innovation?
04:31Senator, I agree we can always do better when it comes to acquisition.
04:34So a number of the acquisition reforms and fully the implementation of the adapted acquisition framework that allows all the authorities that Congress has provided to fully utilize all of the resources we have.
04:47That starts with reducing barriers to entry as we bring in new entrants into the acquisition system,
04:55ensuring that we are providing really clear requirements but not overly burdensome requirements in quickly getting those capabilities into the hands of the warfighter
05:08that will allow us to continually refine through things like open architectures that will allow us to make sure the right capability is delivered as fast as possible.
