It’s not all about AI and software. You need hardware compact enough — and secure enough — to deploy into a war zone.

“What I want to bet on is the ability of the United States and our Western allies to out-innovate adversaries,” says Mike Griffin, undersecretary of Defense for research and engineering.

Congress and China have emerged as the primary culprits for the weakening the US defense industrial base. Those are the most striking findings of a new White House report that takes a deep-dive into the state of defense manufacturing in the United States, sounding alarm bells over the decline in capability and the rise of China’s industrial might.

The Pentagon is moving out quickly to get in front of Chinese advances in artificial intelligence, and is rushing a plan up to Capitol Hill to work with the intel community more closely.