Top defense and technology companies are creating new battlefield simulations generated by powerful AI models in hopes of stopping war from breaking out around the globe. Lockheed Martin is assembling an “AI Fight Club,” while Google is working toward a digital twin of various battlefields that it hopes could deter an invasion of Taiwan.

New defense-tech partnerships took center stage at the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo, a major AI conference held this week in Washington, where national security officials and technology companies looked for new ways to adopt AI into military systems. National Security Tech Correspondent Ryan Lovelace reported from the floor of the expo.

Lockheed told Mr. Lovelace it is developing its initial fight club arena and plans to host its first battle in the last three months of the year. Google is working with Lockheed on using generative AI for national security and is similarly interested in creating virtual battlefield scenarios.

OpenAI is preparing to form new partnerships with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community, marking an important shift for the San Francisco-based company that has grown close to American national security officials in recent months. 

Katrina Mulligan, OpenAI head of federal partnerships, told the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo this week that she’s working on four projects involving America’s National Labs, Department of Defense, intelligence community and industrial base. She expressed confidence in OpenAI’s ability to develop cutting-edge AI with safety in mind.

“Part of doing it safely and responsibly means we have to partner with government,” said Ms. Mulligan, who joined OpenAI last year after working with the Army, the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council. OpenAI rewrote its rules last year, which enabled increasing collaboration with the Pentagon and reducing prohibitions on using its AI models for weapons development.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin says the service plans to build more than 185 F-47 advanced stealth jets, which will be operational from 2025 to 2029 and have a combat radius of more than 1,000 nautical miles.

“Our @usairforce will continue to be the world’s best example of speed, agility, and lethality,” the four-star general wrote in a recent social media post that included a chart indicating the F-47 will be supersonic — with top speeds of more than Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound — and have greater radar-evading characteristics than the jet it will replace, the F-22, first flown in 1997.

The F-22 was designed for use in a conflict against China and was canceled after 187 jets were built in favor of the multiservice F-35. The 590-nautical-mile-range F-22 employs a “super cruise” system that allows it to fly long distances, fire long-range missiles and have enough fuel to return to base. The F-47 has 40% more range and greater capability to penetrate advanced air defense networks.

The Department of Energy has placed South Korea on its list of “sensitive” countries over growing support in the country for developing nuclear weapons instead of relying on U.S. nuclear deterrence.

A department spokeswoman told National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz that Seoul was added to the “Sensitive and Other Designated Countries List,” known as the SCL, in January, during the final days of the Biden administration.

A person with knowledge of the decision said it was made based on statements by South Korean officials regarding nuclear weapons and a 2023 public opinion poll that found 71% of South Koreans favor building a nuclear deterrent. The designation has been maintained since the Trump administration came into office over concerns that South Korea could be secretly building strategic weapons.

The “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill passed by the House and now being considered in the Senate includes $150 billion in defense spending, notes Wilson Beaver, who asserts that “this is an outstanding opportunity to gain escape velocity from normal defense budget processes and buy and build above what we would have otherwise.”

“The reconciliation bill does a good job of funding auxiliary ships and amphibious warfare ships, both of which are critical. It also funds, at a very high level, potentially promising but operationally untested unmanned surface vessels,” writes Mr. Beaver, a senior policy adviser for defense budgeting at The Heritage Foundation.

“However, for the manned warships that will be fighting wars for the foreseeable future, the reconciliation bill funds only two destroyers, one submarine and zero frigates,” he writes. “If the goal is to expand the size of the Navy’s surface fleet and make it more lethal, a third destroyer, a second submarine or a couple of frigates, with at least one at a new, second shipyard, ought to be funded through the reconciliation process as well.”

• June 9 — Why the U.S. Needs to Win the Biotechnology Race against the CCP, Hudson Institute

• June 9-13 — Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC25), Apple

• June 9 — Rave for Nuclear Energy, Center for Industrial Strategy and Foundation for American innovation

• June 10 — Adapting the U.S. Nuclear Posture in Response to Adversary Threats, Hudson Institute

• June 10 — U.S.-China Competition and the Value of Middle East Influence, Defense Priorities

• June 12 — What is the Opportunity Cost of State AI Policy? Cato Institute

• June 25 — The New IC, Intelligence and National Security Alliance