AI Is Changing the Game, Says Anduril Founder Luckey

How is this used? How is this different? Well, first of all, note that Pulsar is already being used by U.S. military customers across multiple continents, multiple AO Rs on fixed sites, on mounted vehicles and on aircraft. So Pulsar, while we’re announcing it for the first time today ahead of soft week, it’s actually been in existence for years. This is something we haven’t been able to talk about but we’ve been working on for a long time. It’s an AI powered electronic warfare tool that can understand what’s going on in the RF domain and then take measures to accomplish your aims within the RF domain. So jamming, hacking, spoofing, controlling, identifying things, countering those things, making sure that your own electronic systems maintain their functionality. And it’s able to do that extremely fast. Because it’s powered by Lattice, our AI system that powers all Android products, it’s able to do what would have previously taken a team of electronic warfare specialists in a building full of equipment weeks or months to accomplish in just seconds. So to that point, and Palmer, I of course preface all of this with from a political perspective, but from a personal perspective, right now it is emotional time when we’re discussing war, when we’re discussing warfare. So we’re sensitive to that. But where at the moment is this being used in a different kind of way? You were just talking about how it’s already been basically been used since 2020. This is the first time you can discuss it. But how has artificial intelligence changed the pace with which you can iterate, but also things are changing within warfare? Well, I started, Andrew, because I was concerned that the United States and our allies around the world, we’re losing our technological edge to some of our near peers and even now in many areas peers. And I think that how things have been playing out in Ukraine and around the world have really proven, proven that out. AI is changing the game in a lot of ways because it allows you to deploy large numbers of systems in a much more intelligent, much more useful way than we’ve ever been able to do before with even remotely piloted systems. Andrew’s been focused on AI since the beginning of our company about seven years ago. Notice that our name, Anderl Industries, is, you know, the acronym is AI, and that’s for a reason. We were we believe that artificial intelligence was going to be changing the nature of warfare long before a lot of people were paying any attention to AII. Remember when we were starting our company and it was hard to raise money for AI companies? People weren’t taking it seriously. They saw it as kind of a science fiction gem, but not something that was real. And unfortunately the reality of the world today has forced people to start paying more attention to what AI can do on the battlefield. People paying attention a government they have to are are the defence sector in particular. And I mean I speak to the fact that the Air Force in the United States has got with the program understood the impact that you’re making and ultimately what brought you on. You’re now doing a program, you’re sort of seen as a new type, a new force of of defence tech startup. You actually call it a non traditional defence company. Can you talk us through the collaborative Combat Aircraft program? Basically, this is about aircraft that fly alongside those that are manned. Sure. I mean, this is an area where the US Air Force and Secretary Kendall deserve a lot of credit for their vision. They want to deploy AI powered aircraft at scale alongside manned aircraft on a timeline that is relevant to the conflicts that we are trying to deter and that have the ranges and capabilities that we need to be meaningful to the adversaries that we might have to fight. I’ll just name the name. It’s China CCA. The Collaborative Combat Aircraft program is the program to to develop and then build over 1000CC as that are going to fly alongside manned aircraft. Loyal wingman. They’ve loyal wingman, they’ve been called and roll just beat out Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing for a slot on the CCA program. We’re going to be using that slot to build production representative aircraft, not prototypes, but production representative aircraft that are going to be ready to go to scale at manufacturing. If we can hit all of our, if we can hit all of our milestones and prove that we are as good at building airplanes as we are at building AI. You went there and you mentioned China. I’m interested as to therefore where you will manufacture and ultimately see deploying of of these particular autonomous fighter jets. Well, they’re going to be deployed right here in or built right here in the United States where they’re going to be deployed, that’s up to our customer. I don’t have a ton, a ton of insight into where exactly they might do that though I’ve got some ideas. I’m interested where you see therefore at the moment the US taking leadership back. Or do you still worry, since, bless you, the founding of Anjaril, whether you do think that US has reasserted itself, become again the leader? I think that we have a long way to go in certain areas. But the really powerful thing is that we’ve recognized the areas where we have problems. I think people have been pulled out of their slumber. They realize that there’s areas we can move much faster, we can do things in months, not years, that just were not possible to do within the bureaucracy before, within the previous construct of how we were supposed to get things done. I mean, the Air Force taking a bet on and roll on. CCA is just one of many examples of people realizing that business as usual is not something that we have time for. Not in the modern timeline, not in the modern threat environment. But what about the competition from the Boeings, From the Lockheeds? Are they not getting with the program, starting up their own internal startups or indeed making acquisitions? You know, I don’t feel like those guys are really the competition. I feel a bit of a kinship with them that, look, I’m not running my business the same way that they’re running their business. But at the end of the day, we’re all trying to protect the same country. We’re all trying to protect the same values more or less here and around the world. I’m actually much more worried about the competition from Iran. I’m much more worried about the competition from Russia and China. We’ve had systems in Ukraine since the second week of the war and the innovation that I’ve seen coming out of Russia, China and Iran as kind of a coalition of very technologically advanced adversaries. It worries me a lot more than the competition that I have here in the US There’s things that I’m going to build that I do better than Boeing, for example. And there’s things that Boeing is going to build that where they’re better than me. And I I recognize that. And I think we’re doing a pretty good job of finding how we can continue working together with all of these different companies and you know all these companies that I just mentioned US beating on the CCA program, we’re working with all of them in some capacity on other programs. It’s actually a little less cutthroat than people would think because of that very strong shared sense of mission that you see in the United States national security apparatus and you’re aligning incentives with allies as well. And we know of course an autonomous sub that you’ve been working with Australia and actually sort of Co developing and keeping on pace unheard of kind of in the defence contract space of actually being on time and in budget. But where else might you manufacture might you Co develop. It was interesting that one of our own reporters highlighting that the VP of Taiwan was speaking at AUS event. Would there ever be manufacturing in Taiwan? Well, you’re right on the go. Shark program, that’s an autonomous robotic submarine the size of a school bus that we’ve been developing with the Royal Australian Navy. And we actually just delivered the first submarine a year ahead of schedule and on budget, which as you mentioned is rare. It’s, it’s practically unheard of. There are other areas where we’re looking to expand. I can’t talk about the specifics of it, but I can tell you that I’m in Taiwan frequently. I was just there a few months ago. I’m going back in just a few weeks. Taiwan is obviously one of the key technological partners of the United States, especially in the region. It’s critical for United States military security that that Taiwan remains free and independent and democratic, but it’s also very important for our economy. I would say there might not be another country in the world that is really underpinning so much of our way of life when it comes to semiconductors and all of the things that they power throughout our consumer and industrial and defense economy. You talk about how things have changed, certainly from the Ministry of Defence perspective, but what’s also changing is the politicisation ultimately of companies that are working within warfare. And we certainly see that from protests here among students. How have you been feeling? Angel is being embraced still by the private sector from a money perspective, are you raising money? Is it easy to do so? Are you looking to go public? Well, luckily, I think that there is a very big golf and sophistication around international affairs between the types of people who are funding Anderl and the types of people who are skipping class to camp out on campus, on campuses. I think that there’s a lot of people who recognize that the United States should have the best technology. The only way to credibly deter warfare is to have a backstop of credible threat of violence. There is no way that you can deter every adversary with the threat of a sternly worded letter or this idea that sanctions are going to cripple their economy, especially in areas where we don’t even have the leverage to make that true. I think that on the funding side, where we don’t have any problems, we’ve got a lot of money in the bank. We have a very healthy revenue pipeline. We’re on the path to being a publicly traded company and a lot of people are really excited about that because Andrel, in addition to building tools that keep our men and women on the front lines safe, which is something people want to be invested in, is also just a good, credible business with a really good road map that’s doing well on our existing products and it’s a healthy pipeline of future products. We just announced Pulsar. We just showed off some other new products like Menace X. We’re going to be announcing products through the rest of the year. We’ve got about a dozen products that we publicly announced. We’ve got another dozen that are not even publicly talked about yet and they’re of a similar calibre. And I I think that our investors recognise that perspective and existing. I look forward to you coming back and talking about it when they can talk about it publicly, but quickly, IPO 2024 or 2025, Well, I can almost promise you it won’t be 2024. If it was, we’d already have to be way down that path. Andrew wants to be a publicly traded company for a variety of different reasons. It’s something that we’ve wanted to do since the very beginning. You know, this is my second company. You might know, I started a company called Oculus VR when I was 19. I sold that to Facebook for a few billion dollars. I was there for a few years before I was fired and I’ve decided that I want to go on a different path this time. And luckily, that aligns with what our customers want us to do, what our investors want us to do and I think what the American people want to do, where they want to be able to buy into these companies, not have them operate as private entities beyond reach and beyond control.