NATSEC-TECH THURSDAY — November 6, 2025: Every Thursday’s edition of Threat Status highlights the intersection between national security and advanced technology, from artificial intelligence to cyber threats and the battle for global data dominance.
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All eyes will be on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech Friday to defense industry insiders about acquisition reform.
… President Trump has apparently urged Mr. Hegseth to dial back his harsh criticism of Chinese military aggression.
… The advanced tech company that won this week’s DataTribe Challenge Competition is training U.S. Air Force robots.
… Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered officials to submit proposals for possible nuclear tests in response to Mr. Trump’s suggestion the U.S. will restart its own tests.
… The U.S. military footprint in Puerto Rico is growing amid tension with Venezuela.
… Mr. Trump has renominated Jared Isaacman to head NASA.
… California-based D-Wave’s Advantage2 quantum computer is now available for U.S. government applications at Davidson Technologies’ headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.
… This exclusive video with Davidson explores how quantum computing could define data dominance in space and missile defense.
… And Threat Status’ special “Drones Unleashed” platform is now in full swing.
The Trump administration’s recent cuts to domestic space institutions put the U.S. on the back foot when competing against China in the final frontier, according to a new Foundation for Defense of Democracies report that calls on Washington to encourage investment in space technology to ensure security.
China’s recent investments in the commercial space sector seek to “undermine American infrastructure” by “forcing firms to rely on Chinese infrastructure vulnerable to espionage,” according to the report, which asserts that Beijing is militarizing space to facilitate precision ground strikes using satellite technology. Beijing’s investment in the commercial space sector reached over $2.1 billion in 2024, a 40% increase from the previous year.
The FDD report comes as NASA faces a proposed White House 2026 budget that would slash the space agency’s funding by 24% and cut its science programs by 47%. NASA has also been without a permanent leader since Mr. Trump took office. The president withdrew his original pick to lead the space agency, tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, back in May following a public feud with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. However, the president renominated Mr. Isaacman on Tuesday.
New York-based company Evercoast, which boasts unique advances in creating platforms for so-called “physical AI,” was named the winner of the “DataTribe Challenge Competition” at Cyber Innovation Day 2025 this week.
“The U.S Air Force is speeding robotic training using Evercoast by capturing humans performing repair tasks on F-16s, bringing that into a simulation and then using that simulated AI to actuate robots that then go perform those tasks,” Ben Nunez, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said during his presentation to the judges during an event in Washington showcasing the competition on Tuesday.
The competition has become a flagship annual event of DataTribe, the influential venture capital incubator and investment firm based in Maryland that for years has been quietly channeling funding toward “deep-tech” early-stage cybersecurity and data science startups. Evercoast presented what it calls a “training ground for physical AI,” Mr. Nunez said.
Defense tech firm Palantir’s stock dropped throughout this week, despite a better-than-expected earnings call on Monday night. CEO Alex Karp has fired back at analysts who suggest companies such as Palantir and others at the forefront of AI development are overvalued.
Financial analyst Michael Burry — famous for his “Big Short” position on the housing market — shared this week that he was holding a short position on Palantir over concerns about a possible AI market bubble. Mr. Burry’s hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, bought more than $1 billion in market options that allow the fund to profit when share prices decline, according to regulatory filings released Monday.
Mr. Karp, a long-time associate of Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, is brushing off naysayers. He said in Monday’s earnings call that Palantir has been the fifth-best performing stock in the S&P 500 so far this year.
It’s notable, meanwhile, that Mr. Burry’s options not only included Palantir, but also the global chip manufacturer Nvidia. The two companies announced a partnership last week for “a first-of-its-kind integrated technology stack for operational AI.” Palantir did not mention the Nvidia partnership during Monday’s call but did tout the U.S. Army’s decision to move to “Vantage,” a Palantir platform, as its primary data host.
Could the U.S. decision to help South Korea build a nuclear-powered submarine spell the end of the push for denuclearization in Northeast Asia and threaten the global nonproliferation regime? Retired U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace “Chip” Gregson weighed in on the situation during an exclusive appearance this week on The Washington Brief, a monthly online forum hosted by The Washington Times Foundation.
“If South Korea decides that they want to expend national resources to achieve a nuclear submarine capability, they will be able to do it, and we should help with it to make sure that proper precautions, security and everything are taken,” Mr. Gregson said. “But this also creates an alliance problem for us, because then which of our other allies want nuclear submarines? Japan would be about a day behind South Korea in developing the technology for a nuclear submarine if South Korea wants to have a nuclear submarine.”
Mr. Trump said during his recent visit to the region that the U.S. would help South Korea develop and build nuclear-powered submarines. The U.S. greenlight makes South Korea a blue water navy, meaning its ships can travel far beyond its nation’s waters. Only the U.S., Britain, China, Russia, and India field nuclear-powered subs. Australia is in line to acquire nuclear-powered subs through the AUKUS agreement but isn’t expected to receive them for several years.
Without rare earth minerals, the “world as we foresee it may never come to be,” Peter Roff writes in a Times op-ed. He asserts that “if this race doesn’t end with America winning, the artificial intelligence revolution will grind to a halt, leading to a bleaker future.
“China is the world’s primary source of rare earth metals and can deprive the U.S. of access to them at any time,” writes Mr. Roff, a political analyst who is now affiliated with several public policy organizations. “This is problematic, as America cannot produce the next generation of weapons systems needed to defend American interests against foreign aggression or build the Reagan-Trump vision of an Iron Dome providing a multifaceted defense against ballistic missile attacks.
“It’s obviously in America’s interest to establish alternative supply chains, but how? The Trump administration is exploring this in earnest, but not to a degree sufficient to address the immediacy of the concern,” he writes, noting United Rare Earths Chairman Jeffrey Willis’ recent assertion that “the recent rare earth mineral deals with Australia and Japan are a good place to begin.”
• Nov. 11 — Free Showing of the Award-winning Documentary ‘Honor in the Air: Remembering Captain Scott Alwin and the 68th Assault Helicopter Company,’ Washington Policy Institute
• Nov. 12 — Space Force Association Washington Fall Social, SFA D.C. Chapter
• Nov. 13 — The Fourth Intelligence Revolution: Anthony Vinci on Artificial Intelligence, Geopolitics and the Future of Espionage, Hudson Institute
• Nov. 13 — Meeting the U.S. Defense Imperative: Challenges and Opportunities in the Development of the Defense Industrial Base Workforce, Center for Strategic & International Studies
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