Pentagon to dish out $600mn in contracts for โ5G dual-use EXPERIMENTATIONโ at 5 US military sites, including to ‘aid lethality’
โโฆ The US military has partnered with more than a dozen companies for โlarge-scale experimentationโ with 5G technology, including efforts to enhance the [cyber]โlethalityโ of certain systems, in whatโs slated to be a $600 million project.
Dubbing 5G tech a โfoundational enabler for all US defense modernization,โ the Pentagon announced the massive research initiative on Thursday, which will hand hundreds of millions to 15 private contractors to conduct testing at five US military installations.
โToday, the Department of Defense announced $600 million in awards for 5G experimentation and testing at five US military test sites, representing the largest full-scale 5G tests for dual-use applications in the world,โ the Pentagon said in a statement, adding that it would bring together experts from several industries and disciplines.
โฆ Firms selected for the project include telecoms AT&T, Nokia and Ericsson, intelligence and infotech contractor Booz-Allen Hamilton, the research wing of General Electric, GE Research, and a subsidiary of aerospace giant General Dynamics.
One effort spearheaded by AT&T at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada will apply 5G to โdistributed command and controlโ systems in order to โaid in Air, Space, and Cyberspace lethality,โ enhancing communications for mobile command centers in combat scenarios.
At Washington stateโs Joint Base Lewis-McChord, AT&T will also work alongside Booz-Allen and two other firms to develop 5G-enabled virtual reality technology for training, mission planning and even โoperational use,โ though the Pentagon provided no examples of the latter applicationโฆ..โ
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