Dr. Will Roper: The Urgent Need for The Pentagon to Unlock AI’s Potential

Digital engineering is a transformative capability for hardware that enables fully digital design, testing, and certification of systems without physically building them.

• Digital engineering is doing engineering digitally with the help of computer models and similar technology.
• It is possible to fully digitally design, test, and certify systems without physically building them.
• Computer models are capable of creating physics and structures to a high degree of reliability.
• Digital engineering solves the problems of expensive, slow, and environmentally impactful physical prototyping.
• The McLaren racing team's approach to digital engineering is an inspiring level of digital agility.
• Digital engineering is a transformative capability for hardware that enables an agile approach to hardware development.

The speaker learned about digital engineering through programs like the t7 and the Air Force and ground-based strategic deterrent. He was taken under the wing of the McLaren racing team in the UK, who taught him that the way they do digital engineering makes the way we build airplanes look like a thing from the Neolithic Age. They're designing tens of thousands of digital cars per season, changing every 15 minutes of every day, and by the time a racing season ends, the car that finishes is 85 percent different than the car that began. The car that began the season wouldn't even qualify for the last race. This level of digital agility is inspiring and makes the way we do aviation and spacecraft building look like a losing strategy.

Dr. Will Roper is a former U.S. Air Force and Space Force executive; he has spent his career implementing advanced technology—including machine learning and digital engineering, in both the government and private sectors. While he has seen first-hand that the Pentagon has made great strides in procuring advanced technology, Dr. Roper describes the Pentagon not as digitally native but as preferring to say behind the innovation curve. He suggests that the Pentagon needs to invest in digital infrastructure to unlock the most powerful machine learning capabilities on the battlefield. Dr. Roper also lays out a roadmap for applying digital engineering and simulation to build advanced, battle-ready hardware more quickly.As AI and machine learning advance rapidly, losing the innovation war will have drastic consequences for America's future. Dr. Roper calls for urgent investment in digital technologies to ensure that the United States stays ahead of other superpowers on the battlefield and beyond. Dr. Will Roper is currently a Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech, focusing on technology that impacts national security. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, leading over $60 billion of annual technology development and operations for the U.S. Air Force and Space Force.