Artificial intelligence agents will support defense planning and military operations.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to Scale AI for the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) agents to support military planning and operations.

The initiative, dubbed "Thunderforge," is described as the Pentagon's "flagship program" for integrating AI into military workflows and decision-making.

The deal, announced last week, marks a major step toward AI-powered warfare, with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) spearheading this ambitious program. Scale AI’s founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, hailed the contract as a "significant milestone in military advancement."

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The deal, according to a statement by Scale AI, will deploy AI solutions that will transform today’s military operating process and modernize American defense.

AI in warfare: A rapidly growing trend

Thunderforge comes amid a broader push by the U.S. military to harness AI technology for defense purposes. The DIU emphasized that the program will help “accelerate decision-making” and improve real-time responses to evolving threats.

Bryce Goodman, the program lead for Thunderforge, acknowledged a "fundamental mismatch between the speed of modern warfare and our ability to respond." AI-driven solutions, he said, will help bridge that gap.

Under the contract, Scale AI and its partners—including tech giants like Microsoft and Anduril—will develop AI-powered solutions designed to assist military leaders in synthesizing vast amounts of data, generating multiple courses of action, and conducting AI-driven wargaming exercises.

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While the AI will operate under human oversight, its goal is to enhance the efficiency and precision of military planning.

Thunderforge is not the first instance of AI integration into military systems, but it is among the most ambitious. Scale AI has previously worked with the DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to test and evaluate large language models (LLMs) for military applications.

The Pentagon’s latest move follows a pattern of increasing investment in AI-powered warfare tools.

Tech companies that were once reluctant to collaborate with the military on AI projects are now shifting their stance. Google, for example, recently removed its pledge against developing AI for surveillance and weapons systems.

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OpenAI has also partnered with Palmer Luckey’s defense tech company Anduril to enhance counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS), further indicating a shift in Silicon Valley’s approach to defense contracts.

Risks and ethical concerns

Despite the optimism surrounding Thunderforge, concerns persist about the reliability and ethical implications of AI in warfare. Previous studies have highlighted the potential risks of autonomous AI decision-making in combat scenarios.

For instance, a Stanford University study found that OpenAI’s GPT-4 LLM exhibited aggressive and unpredictable behavior when tasked with wargame simulations, raising questions about AI's suitability for high-stakes military applications.

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While Scale AI insists its technology will operate under human oversight, the deployment of AI agents in military operations remains a contentious issue. Critics argue that AI-driven warfare could introduce new vulnerabilities, including the possibility of erroneous or overly aggressive decision-making by AI models.

A Pentagon official confirmed last month that the U.S. military were moving away from funding research on AI-powered weapons and started investing in autonomous killer robots instead.

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