Defence to invest $3.4 billion in new defence accelerator

Leidos Mayhem hypersonic missile. Image: Leidos

Defence will invest $3.4 billion over the next decade to establish the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA). The new Accelerator will replace the Defence Innovation Hub and Next Generation Technologies Fund (NGTF), which the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) has identified as no longer fit for purpose in Australia’s current strategic environment.

“What this represents…is one of the biggest Defence investments in innovation in our country for decades,” said Minister for Defence Richard Marles to reporters. “It is a game changer in terms of getting the brightest and best Australian technologies into operation. And ultimately that is our objective here.

“Central to this will be our ongoing work to operationalise Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement, which seeks to develop and provide capabilities such as undersea warfare and hypersonics for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

To be stood up at the start of the next financial year on 1 July, ASCA will be a key element of the Defence innovation, science and technology program. Priorities for the program are hypersonics, directed energy, trusted autonomy, quantum technology, information warfare and long-range fires.

“We can’t put large armies or navies into the field, but one thing we can do is invest in asymmetric technology,” Marles added. “And that, in many ways, this is the most value for money investment that we can make. And we need to have a much greater focus on defence innovation as we go into the future.”

The expenditure earmarked for ASCA is an additional $591 million above current planned spending on defence innovation and acknowledges that Australia has lost the ten-year warning time cushion that had shaped previous Science and technology (S&T) policy. The DSR concluded that Australia needs more effective support for innovation, faster acquisition and better links between Defence and industry to deliver the capabilities the Australian Defence Force (ADF) needs.

“ASCA will do two things,” said Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy in a press conference at Garden Island. “It will help solve technology challenges for the ADF so that they get new advanced capabilities to give them greater firepower and greater protection. And secondly, it will grow the defence companies of the future.

“For this to work properly, we need to speed up the acquisition cycle and speed up the innovation cycle. So, we’ll be getting a yes faster. And importantly for defence industry, they’ll be getting faster no’s.”

“When we see innovative technology anywhere in our ecosystem, we’ll have the ability to procure it, to get it into the hands of our warfighters, to get it into exercises,” according to the Chief Defence Scientist, Professor Tanya Monro AC. “What I want ASCA to do is to challenge the broader Defence Science & Technology Group (DSTG) to move faster and with more urgency.”

It will focus on defined missions, addressing the most relevant technical issues, and taking a more flexible and agile approach to procurement. This will ensure game-changing ideas are developed into capabilities that give the ADF an asymmetric advantage.

ASCA will be guided by the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, the Chief Defence Scientist and the Deputy Secretary, Capability Acquisitions and Sustainability Group. This will allow it to be up and running quickly by 1 July with a phased start up over the first 18 months to develop, test and refine the operating model.