Russian Hybrid Warfare is Surging
Ken Hampshire with NODA AI joins Threat Status! Guy hosts the show while Ben is on leave, with National Security Correspondent John T. Seward joining to unpack the sudden resignation of U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and the rising tide of Russian hybrid warfare.
Then, Ken Hampshire, Chief Technology Officer at NODA AI, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the cutting edge and complex orchestration that will be needed if the U.S. military wants all of its autonomous systems to work together in modern combat.
NODA AI’s Contract Grows Tenfold as Pentagon Scales Autonomous Mission Command Software
A new challenge is emerging as autonomous systems spread across the battlefield: coordinating disparate platforms toward a single mission without constant human direction. Austin-based NODA AI is moving fast to solve it.
Less than a month after winning a $10-million Department of Defense contract to build MAESTRO — orchestration software tied to the Pentagon’s LUCAS attack drone program — the company has landed a follow-on contract worth 1- times as much: $100 million to scale its autonomous mission command software across the entire Joint Force.
Command and Politics in the War Between Moscow and Kyiv
NODA AI CTO, Ken Hampshire, discusses the importance of Commander’s Intent for the evolution of drone warfare alongside Michael Kofman and Dara Massicot in a new segment of War on the Rocks. The intrepid team covers a lot of ground in this episode: the increasing fluidity of the battlefield, drones and air defense, the biting Black Sea campaign, the causes and aftermath of the firing of Ukraine’s popular defense minister, why Ukraine probably cannot produce PAC-3 air defense missiles (despite what some journalists are telling you), and the likelihood of a new round of Russian mobilization.
NODA AI’s Phil Duong On Building Mission Command For Autonomous Forces
Phil Duong, CEO and Co-Founder of NODA AI, is building the mission command layer for autonomous forces that nobody else is focused on. His company orchestrates multi-vendor platforms into coordinated effects the way a JTAC pairs aircraft with targets. A Marine Corps naval aviator and JTAC turned defense tech founder, Phil earned NODA AI a $100 million Department of War award to scale mission command for autonomous forces after years refining a thesis on software-defined effects.
Topics discussed:
– Building a mission command orchestrator for multi-vendor autonomous forces
– Flying drones point to point as table stakes
– Software-defined effects and working backward from desired end states
– Adaptive recomposition when assets go down mid-mission
– Operating autonomous systems in disconnected, denied environments
– Navigating the triad of warfighter, Pentagon, and Capitol Hill
– Why software will overtake hardware in future conflict
– Finding investors who truly back founders at the earliest stage
The Pentagon Is Building an Autonomous Arsenal. It Doesn’t Have Autonomous Command.
Ken Hampshire: In July, the Department of War reorganized unmanned and autonomous systems under a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM-UxS), consolidating disparate autonomy programs into a single authority with the mandate to adopt emerging capabilities across the joint force.
The Pentagon is usually precise about what it needs. Many requirements describe a layer of technology that can translate commander’s intent into machine execution, side by side with humans on or in the loop. That layer is orchestration. It is the ability to project human intent horizontally across vertical autonomy stacks and to carry out that intent automatically. Think of it as autonomous mission command for robotic forces. Yet the term “orchestrator” is variously interpreted and inconsistently used, making it difficult to build one.
NODA AI Wins $10M for Orchestration across LUCAS and Other Unmanned Platforms
If you thought you’d heard the last of the LUCAS program, think again. Orchestration startup NODA AI announced that it’s won a $10M contract with the Pentagon to develop MAESTRO (Multi-Domain Autonomous Enhanced System for Tactical Reasoning and Orchestration).
The Pentagon Is Finally Buying (Some) Weapons From Startups
“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.
Building a First Check Partnership
Phil Duong is the CEO and co-founder of NODA AI. The son of Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the U.S. with little money and speaking little English, he grew up in a family of service members who had fought for their freedom. His heritage left him with a deep sense of patriotism and a drive, as he puts it, to repay the country “multiple lives’ worth.” He was appointed to West Point but walked away from it when a childhood medical issue blocked him from branching aviation, calling the Marine Corps instead because they needed pilots and were willing to give him a shot. After leaving active duty, he built a career at enterprise-AI company C3, rising to general manager of its federal practice before leaving to start NODA. He frames himself first and foremost as “a Marine and patriot,” a self-description that shapes how he runs the company and what he’s willing to say in public.
2026 NatSec100 Report
NODA AI was selected for the Silicon Valley Defense Group’s annual NatSec100, which highlights the top 100 venture/PE-backed American defense companies that are innovating, building, and delivering warfighting capabilities.
What Does SOUTHCOM’s New Autonomous Warfare Command Herald?
Gen. Frank Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, sat down with Ryan to discuss the vision behind the command’s new Autonomous Warfare Command and what it signals for the future of military operations in the Western Hemisphere. Donovan explains how SOUTHCOM aims to move drones and autonomous systems beyond tactical experimentation and connect them to strategic effect: disrupting cartel networks designated as terrorist organizations, strengthening cooperation with allies and partners, and giving the command new ways to see, decide, and act across a complex region.