Unit X How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War

A riveting inside look at an elite unit within the Pentagon—the Defense Innovation Unit, also known as Unit X—whose mission is to bring Silicon Valley’s cutting-edge technology to America’s military: from the two men who launched the unit.

A vast and largely unseen transformation of how war is fought as profound as the invention of gunpowder or advent of the nuclear age is occurring. Flying cars that can land like helicopters, artificial intelligence-powered drones that can fly into buildings and map their interiors, microsatellites that can see through clouds and monitor rogue missile sites—all these and more are becoming part of America’s DIU-fast-tracked arsenal.

Until recently, the Pentagon was known for its uncomfortable relationship with Silicon Valley and for slow-moving processes that acted as a brake on innovation. Unit X was specifically designed as a bridge to Valley technologists that would accelerate bringing state of the art software and hardware to the battle space. Given authority to cut through red tape and function almost as a venture capital firm, Shah, Kirchhoff, and others in the Unit who came after were tasked particularly with meeting immediate military needs with technology from Valley startups rather than from so-called “primes”—behemoth companies like Lockheed, Raytheon, and Boeing.

Taking us inside AI labs, drone workshops, and battle command centers—and, also, overseas to Ukraine’s frontlines—Shah and Kirchhoff paint a fascinating picture of what it takes to stay dominant in a fast-changing and often precarious geopolitical landscape.

In an era when America’s chief rival, China, has ordered that all commercial firms within its borders make their research and technology available for military exploitation, strengthening the relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley was always advisable. Today, it is an urgent necessity.

Raj Shah is a serial technology entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and former managing director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. He founded software companies Resilience and Morta Security. Today, he is the Managing Partner of Shield Capital, an investment firm focused on technologies at the nexus of commercial and national security applications. He started his career as an F-16 pilot in the Air National Guard and continues to serve as a part-time Guardsman. He obtained an AB degree from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. 

Christopher Kirchhoff is an expert in emerging technology who helped create the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. Prior to that, in the Obama Administration, he was the Director of Strategic Planning for the National Security Council and was the senior civilian adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Most recently, he helped design and scale $1 billion in philanthropic programs at Schmidt Futures and he continues to work at DIU in a part-time capacity. Chris obtained an AB degree from Harvard College and a PhD in social and political sciences from Cambridge University.