If OpenAI can actually implement its Stargate Project to build $500 billion-worth of AI infrastructure in the US, one of the major beneficiaries may be the U.S. military. “It depends on how much of that they devote to gov[ernment] cloud and AI cloud,” said Roy Campbell, chief strategist for the Pentagon’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program and deputy director for advanced computing in the undersecretariat for research & engineering. And if the Defense Department can get a slice of Stargate’s computing power, he told Breaking Defense, it could bypass a major bottleneck for its current high-tech ambitions.
The war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is killing soldiers at a pace unseen in Europe since World War II. ... Calculating the scale of the casualties, and therefore the war’s trajectory, is difficult: The information is a state secret in both countries. The Ukrainian government has been especially secretive, restricting access to demographic data that could be used to estimate its losses. Working with incomplete information, experts estimate that Ukraine has suffered about half of Russia’s irreplaceable losses—deaths and injuries that take soldiers out of battle indefinitely—in the nearly three-year-old war.
Two Iranian ships docked in China have been loaded with a critical ingredient to produce propellant for ballistic missiles, people familiar with the matter said—a demonstration of the challenge the Trump administration will have in pressing China to reduce cooperation with Iran.
The Defense Department and other federal agencies have 30 days to implement President Trump's order to end telework and remote work, the Office of Personnel Management said on Jan. 22. Nearly 62,000, or 8 percent, of the Defense Department's 783,000 civilian employees teleworked or worked remotely in April and May of 2024, OPM reported last year. About 10 percent of all federal workers do so.
Russia’s “inflated” fears of a potential U.S. first strike in space, as well as Moscow’s increasing “risk tolerance” present challenges to U.S. efforts to keep the peace in the heavens, a new Space Force-commissioned think tank study finds.
The Senate voted largely along party lines Jan. 23 to advance Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of Defense, brushing aside a litany of misconduct allegations and the objections of Democrats who argued he is unqualified for the job.
Experts from the U.S. Air Force are looking at ways to upgrade Cyprus’ premier air base for use as a humanitarian staging post in future operations in the Middle East, a Cypriot official told The Associated Press Jan. 23. Cyprus, which is only 184 kilometers (114 miles) from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, has acted as a transit point for the repatriation of foreign nationals fleeing conflict in the Middle East and beyond on numerous occasions in the past. It has also served as a transit point for humanitarian aid to Gaza.
A link between military flying and cancer risk later in life would get renewed attention under new measures Congress is considering. The measure—introduced as the “Aviator Cancers Examination Study Act” or ‘ACES’—directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to study the 15 percent higher risk of cancer and associated mortality that other studies have found among active-duty aircrews. The study will cover pilots, navigators, operators, and other aircrew who “regularly flew in a fixed-wing aircraft” in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
Six Air National Guard jets stuck at a Navy base in Sicily for months have returned to the U.S., a Guard official said. The A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft departed from Naval Air Station Sigonella last week and arrived in the U.S. on Jan. 18, Maj. Benjamin Hughes, a Maryland National Guard spokesman, said.
Navy researchers are testing a fully autonomous satellite designed to detect and characterize objects in space. The system, called Autosat, is designed to task, calibrate its signals, and send and receive information on its own without the need for a human operator. Steven Meier, director of space technology at the Naval Research Laboratory, said Jan. 23 his team has demonstrated the capability in the lab.
A joint U.S. Army and Air Force Reserve rescue mission in Washington state becomes a delicate, hazardous attempt at 14,000 feet. Specially prepared CH-47 Chinooks, optimized for mountain operations, carry pararescuemen to the peaks and slopes of Mount Rainier. Their mission is to pull out anyone who might be lost or stuck on some of the highest points in the Cascade Mountain Range. The only place they can train for rescues on Mount Rainier is on Mount Rainier.
