The battlespace of the future hinges more than ever on fusing data, making it actionable and building the means to transmit it from the enterprise to the edge securely, GDIT President Amy Gilliland told defense and industry leaders at a recent defense conference in Washington.
Saying the U.S. is at a pivotal moment during what is “arguably the most significant transformation in technology in a generation,” Gilliland asserted that the defense industry must step up in bringing emerging technology together for the military.
“The battlespace is no longer defined by one domain or by one geography. It’s contested from sea to air to space, from the battlefield to even the boardroom — and this reality is a defining challenge for all of us,” she said, adding it “requires bold thinking and innovation.”
Gilliland’s remarks set the stage for a day-long summit that revolved around the critical need for more fluid data management, the alignment of cyber and kinetic assets, advances in autonomous systems and redefining operations at the edge.
Get the data right
One of the most pressing needs the military faces today is accelerating the ability to unify and manage data across domains — and to deploy new technical innovations into the hands of warfighters faster, according to senior defense leaders during the GDIT Battlespace of the Future summit, hosted by Scoop News Group.
“We don’t have a data problem, we have a data management problem,” declared Lt. Gen. Jeth Rey, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6, U.S. Army, during a lead-off panel discussion. “Data is the decisive munition of the future, and we’re going to find our way to getting it to the commanders to make informed decisions across the board.”
Among other steps, the Army is doubling down on efforts to shift from a network-centric posture to a data-centric environment. The change in focus reflects the recognition that the primary variable of national power has shifted from raw physical firepower to the military’s capacity to move information efficiently at echelon.
Co-panelists Dr. Joseph Jewell, Assistant Secretary, Science and Technology, Department of War (DOW), and Gilliland of GDIT expanded on this requirement, noting that data management and integration now define the boundaries of modern conflict.
The future operational landscape will be interconnected to an unprecedented degree, making the defensive protection and tactical disruption of information streams absolutely crucial, according to the assistant secretary.
To maintain a strategic advantage, the defense sector will need to focus on securely transmitting data across domains, added Gilliland. “It means fusing data and making it into actionable intelligence that we can transit from the enterprise to the edge,” she said.
At the same time, critical infrastructure has become an active target for U.S. adversaries. The same technical capabilities enabling the joint force are simultaneously being turned into digital weapons by foreign enemies targeting the homeland, she warned. This reality places immense pressure on military programmers and commercial contractors to synchronize their operational concepts quickly, moving beyond structural bureaucracy to treat speed as a paramount necessity.
Operationalizing data at echelon
For the U.S. Army, transitioning to a dynamic, data-centric environment requires a complete overhaul of how modern systems are field-tested. Under active initiatives such as “Operation Jailbreak,” designed to accelerate data mobility, traditional long-term planning cycles are being bypassed entirely. Instead, the service is embracing a process of “transforming in contact,” a framework where software developers and industry technicians write code directly in the theater alongside frontline tactical units to gather real-time feedback.
Maintaining this technological edge also requires a fundamental disruption in how the Defense Department commercializes raw research and development. While federal laboratories excel at producing and patenting novel ideas, traditional procurement processes often fail to transition those discoveries to commercial enterprises capable of manufacturing them at scale.
To counter this commercialization gap, the department is leveraging the “Defense Patent Holiday,” an initiative that waives fees and royalties for two years on curated patent portfolios across nine critical technical focus areas, including hypersonics and biotechnology. The goal of the holiday is to prioritize getting technology directly into the hands of the warfighter rather than generating licensing revenue and then scaling these capabilities, according to Jewell.
The department intends to extend the initiative by six months to attract venture-funded companies more aggressively, Jewell said during the executive panel. This requires the DOW to adapt to the fast-growth expectations of venture capital, expanding the industrial aperture beyond traditional prime contractors to rapidly field thousands of technical assets, rather than relying on a handful of “silver bullets.”
Deploying efficacious solutions
The challenge officials face within DOW and across the Defense Industrial Base, according to the panelists, is meeting the urgent demand for fast, proven, and affordable systems without forcing the wholesale removal of active mission software.
One approach GDIT is taking, in coordination with its industry partners, is to prioritize the development and testing of zero-trust architecture within operationally active warfighting environments. This deeper focus on securing interconnected environments was part of a broader business shift GDIT began a couple of years ago.
As an example of this high-velocity deployment, Gilliland cited a recent case where GDIT and one of its commercial partners, Horizon Three AI, scaled a technical solution across 187 global Air Force bases. The newer approach helped secure nearly 1 million service members in a fraction of the time required by traditional test-and-deploy efforts.
Because the nation is on an active “wartime footing” and locked in a technological “foot race,” industrial primes must discard legacy, 24-month procurement timelines, asserted Gilliland, and instead, support rapid, short-term Other Transaction Authority (OTA) prototyping.
Protecting infrastructure from ‘fort to the fight’
Ultimately, dominance in the future battlespace depends on a broader focus on readiness and total alignment among personnel training, commercial partnerships, and defensive posture. Lt. Gen. Rey summarized this requirement by noting that security frameworks must safeguard the military’s entire logistic and data thread, protecting information streams “from the fort to the port to the fight.”
To sustain this long-distance continuity, industry and government must treat technological readiness as a shared mission, the panelists suggested. Additionally, leaders must commit to continuous workforce upskilling, maintain extreme organizational agility, and continuously reinvent their operational methods to ensure the nation shapes the battlespace of tomorrow rather than merely reacting to it.
This article was produced by Scoop News Group for DefenseScoop and sponsored by GDIT.
Written by Scoop News Group
This article was written and produced by Scoop News Group and its creative subsidiary, SNG Content Studio. It reflects the journalistic style and standards of SNG’s publications but was produced separately from SNG’s editorial department, in consultation with and paid for by the sponsor.