Taskforce RAID has four problems to work on, from sorting intelligence to controlling uncrewed vehicles, and the Ministry has opened a channel for companies to offer solutions.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence put £100 million behind Taskforce RAID, the unit it set up in June to get AI tools to British forces faster than standard defense procurement allows. The figure appeared for the first time on a page the Ministry published on August 25.
The money comes from the Defence Investment Plan, the Ministry’s spending plan for military equipment. When Taskforce RAID launched on June 10, the Ministry said the unit would answer directly to the head of the Armed Forces, named the Bristol engineering company Rowden as its first industry partner, and set out the problems it would work on. At the time, it did not provide a funding figure.
Taskforce RAID has four problems to solve
The original June announcement listed four key areas the task force addresses. The first is using AI to sort and analyze the intelligence the military collects. The second is combining information from separate sensors and sources so that commanders get one account of what is happening in an area rather than several partial ones. The third is using AI to draw up military plans faster and redraw them once an operation has started. The fourth is using AI to control uncrewed vehicles.
The Ministry originally published the same four on June 10 in a Defence-wide paper called Putting Artificial Intelligence at the Heart of UK Defence, where it described the fourth as “delivering operational impact through AI-enabled swarms.”
Companies can now offer technology solutions, and the Ministry says a submission is not a sale
The page opens a submission channel the Ministry calls the Industry Front Door, where a company can send in ideas, concepts and technologies. The Ministry then writes that the channel “is intended solely to support engagement, horizon scanning and the exchange of ideas” and “does not constitute a procurement process, competition, request for proposal, or commitment to future commercial activity.” The Ministry says it will run and announce any contract through its usual contracting process.
The Ministry adds that it will review every submission but expects to receive too many to reply to each one, and will make contact only where a submission lines up with work the taskforce is already doing.
The Ministry has not said what the £100 million buys first, what the taskforce has delivered since June, or when anything sent through the Industry Front Door might lead to a contract.
