DARPA’s $4.1 Billion 2023 Budget Funds Fourteen Critical Technologies

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is the world's most advanced research agency. With a $4.1 billion budget request for fiscal 2023, the agency is largely behind uncompromising defense and civilian research endeavors, including human-machine interfaces which allow humans to communicate instantly with machines and augmented and virtual reality. One of fourteen critical research areas highlighted by the DoD and primarily funded by DARPA, the controversial human-machine interface technology—there are others, including Directed Energy Weapons—has the ability to influence all facets of life, enabling humans to operate connected devices simply by thought. Alternatively, the technology would also allow automation to flow in the opposite direction—from the outside world into the human brain. 

Brief History of DARPA

DARPA was established in 1958 by President Dwight Eisenhower in response to the Soviet Union's surprise launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite. Determined to be "the initiator and not the victim of strategic technological surprises," the agency has been the ambitious force behind such life-altering innovations as the internet, stealth technology, autonomous vehicles, gene drives, GPS receivers small enough to embed in myriad consumer devices, the recent introduction of mRNA-based "vaccines," and other "technical and scientific solutions to address the COVID-19 pandemic."

DARPA, Moderna, mRNA Technology, and Pandemic Prevention

Indeed, as previously reported by UncoverDC, DARPA's mostly silent role in the pandemic is significant. The agency strategically aligned with Moderna in 2013 to begin funding work on messenger RNA vaccine technology that is the foundation of the current COVID-19 mRNA "vaccine" program. Prior to the pandemic, DARPA's collaboration with Moderna produced the "first systemic mRNA therapeutic to show the production of a secreted protein in humans." Moreover, in 2017, DARPA introduced the Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3), designed around RNA vaccine technology. In a hint toward future ambitions, DARPA indicated that by "growing viruses needed to support evaluation of therapies in laboratory tests," the program aims to develop an integrated platform that uses nucleic acid sequences to halt the spread of viral infections in sixty days or less.

Screenshot / DARPA

DARPA and DoD's Fourteen Critical Technologies

Shrouded in secrecy with countless classified programs, Timothy P. Grayson, Director of the Strategic Technology Office at DARPA, shared with Forbes in 2021 that he doesn't see the agency's role as just solving the problems identified by the armed forces. Instead, DARPA remains focused on its roughly one hundred project managers housed in six technical directories called "Offices." The agency offers project managers a high level of freedom and autonomy for taking on the most formidable technical challenges within the "Offices," including biological technologies, defense sciences, information innovation, microsystems technology, strategic technology, and tactical technology. In 2015, DARPA's "Breakthrough Technologies for National Securities" report summed up its overall motivation and objective, stating:

Our muse at DARPA is technology, and our objective is national security, but we are motivated by that same irrepressible urge. DARPA's people come through the front door each day to imagine a better future, to drive technology in pursuit of that future, to launch new trajectories of U.S. capability. We come to change what's possible.

DARPA's detailed fiscal 2023 budget plan, released on Apr. 25, shows a $250 million increase over its fiscal 2022 budget. The increases include $833 million for microelectronics, $412 for Artificial Intelligence (AI) endeavors, and $414 million for biotech programs. Many of DARPA's budget priorities serve the Pentagon's strategy for investing in 14 critical technologies, which aim to "chart a course for the United States military to strengthen its technological superiority amidst a global race for technological advantage." Elaborating on the millions requested to develop "novel biological solutions," the budget document states:

"As the DoD expands operations into previously inaccessible domains, new and unique logistical constraints imposed by extreme conditions and resource scarcity threaten force readiness. This program will develop technologies to enable new capabilities that harness microbes, biopolymers, and/or other bioprocesses to protect warfighters and maintain performance of warfighting platforms."

Screenshot / U.S. Navy

Hyper-focused on technology, a six-page memo released on Feb. 1, 2022, by DoD's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Heidi Shyu, outlines the department's vision to "innovate at speed and scale now and into the future." The memo states that the OUSD(R&E) works closely with the Military Services, Combatant Commands, industry, academia, and other stakeholders to "ensure that the Department's science and technology strategy addresses the key national security challenges—from rising seas to a rising China—that the United States faces today and will face in the future." The 14 critical technologies are divided into three categories defined as "Seed Areas of Emerging Opportunity," "Effective Adoption Areas - where there exists vibrant commercial sector activity," and "Defense-Specific Areas." As highlighted in the memo, they are:

Regarding DARPA's commitment to the Pentagon's 14 critical technologies, program Director Dr. Stefanie Tompkins noted that while other agencies may take incremental steps toward addressing these key areas, DARPA wants to initiate significant capability shifts through its program offices. At a conference in April, she remarked: