contact us
  • [
  • Media
  • ]

The Pentagon Is Finally Buying (Some) Weapons From Startups

  • [
  • July 19, 2026
  • ]
“We’ve got a shot to disrupt this thing,” said Philong Duong, chief executive officer of startup NODA AI, which has a military contract selling software for autonomous weapons. Since taking the top job at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has rewritten rules and upended traditions that had for decades steered how the U.S. military buys weapons. More than a year into his tenure, he is keeping his promise to shower money on high-tech defense startups—while also unloading ever-larger sums of cash on the traditional vendors he has publicly disparaged as slow and bloated.
  • — The Wall Street Journal
READ MORE
  • The Wall Street Journal
“We’ve got a shot to disrupt this thing,” said Philong Duong, chief executive officer of startup NODA AI, which has a military contract selling software for autonomous weapons. Since taking the top job at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has rewritten rules and upended traditions that had for decades steered how the U.S. military buys weapons. More than a year into his tenure, he is keeping his promise to shower money on high-tech defense startups—while also unloading ever-larger sums of cash on the traditional vendors he has publicly disparaged as slow and bloated.
READ MORE
“We’ve got a shot to disrupt this thing,” said Philong Duong, chief executive officer of startup NODA AI, which has a military contract selling software for autonomous weapons. Since taking the top job at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has rewritten rules and upended traditions that had for decades steered how the U.S. military buys weapons. More than a year into his tenure, he is keeping his promise to shower money on high-tech defense startups—while also unloading ever-larger sums of cash on the traditional vendors he has publicly disparaged as slow and bloated.
READ MORE

ABOUT NODA AI

NODA AI is a defense technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas, delivering Mission Command for Autonomous Forces. NODA’s Software-Defined Effects (SDFX) engine projects and maintains commander’s intent across heterogeneous unmanned systems in contested, multi-domain environments, transforming fleets that are merely coordinated into a decisive force that executes a human intent across any vendor, any domain. NODA brings the largest network of integrated government and OEM platforms spanning every physical domain from subsurface to the stratosphere, including LUCAS, the Department of War’s attritable unmanned strike system, providing unified intent to any mixed-vendor, multi-domain fleet with no hardware onboard and no changes required from the manufacturer. Founded by Marine Corps veterans and AI practitioners, NODA’s mission is to make mission command for autonomous forces the decisive advantage for the warfighter.

For more information, visit: https://nodaintelligence.ai/  

MEDIA CONTACT

Scott Stanford
VP of Brand Marketing and Communications

CONTACT