The Pentagon has named six senior officials to lead its restructured critical technology priorities, with Cameron Stanley taking charge of applied artificial intelligence (AAI), one of the War Department’s most consequential focus areas.
As a senior official for AAI, Stanley will oversee the department’s use of data, analytics, and AI across military operations. He also serves as the Defense Department’s Chief Digital and AI Officer and previously led Project Maven, the Pentagon’s flagship AI initiative, after earlier roles at Amazon Web Services (AWS) focused on national security transformation.
The appointments follow a November overhaul led by Chief Technology Officer and Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, which streamlined the department’s critical technology areas from 14 to six categories aligned with modern warfare.
Other appointees include Gary J. Vora for biomanufacturing, Robert Mantz for contested logistics technologies, Kevin Rudd for quantum and battlefield information dominance, Christopher Vergien for scaled directed energy, and James W. Weber for scaled hypersonics.
The War Department said each critical technology area is now a department-wide priority with a single accountable leader responsible for delivering capabilities at speed and scale.