The Defense Department (DOD) plans to order 60,000 additional drones in September as it expands its Drone Dominance Program (DDP), a $1.1 billion effort to rapidly field low-cost, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled unmanned aircraft across the military.
Under the Trump administration, the DOD was rebranded as the War Department.
The announcement comes as qualifiers for Gauntlet II concluded this week at Camp Grayling, Mich. The event brought together 49 companies and 79 unique unmanned aerial systems to compete in mission scenarios that included long-range strikes and close-quarters tactical assaults. Each company brought 20 drones to participate.
The DDP is a two-year initiative established to carry out President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14307, which called for DOD to procure, integrate, and train with low-cost, high-performing drones manufactured in the United States.
According to the department, the program aims to rapidly equip military units with low-cost, one-way attack drones while increasing private investment in the U.S. industrial base and reducing costs.
The program is sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and jointly administered by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Test Resource Management Center. It uses a challenge-based acquisition model intended to replace traditional multiyear procurement cycles with six-month competitive phases.
The competition consists of four gauntlet phases designed to test drone technologies in operational scenarios. At the conclusion of each phase, selected systems are eligible for accelerated production opportunities.
“This is an urgent matter,” Owen West, director of the DIU, said in a statement. “Our adversaries are scaling their UAS technology, tactics and industries at an alarming rate. Following Secretary of Defense [Pete] Hegseth’s orders, we are acting decisively to develop new defensive and offensive capabilities to match these threats.”
West said the department has already accepted its first batch of drones, with nearly 2,000 additional units shipped to the military services and thousands more being prepared for delivery.
Following Phase I, during which the department purchased 30,000 drones, officials said additional orders are planned.
“As directed by President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, we have begun to equip our warfighters with the best drones in the world,” Travis Metz, deputy director of the DIU, said in a statement. “We have ordered 30,000, which are being delivered now and will be ordering 60,000 more in September, all based on competitive events and moving supply chains to the United States as we progress.”
The department said it aims to increase production from 30,000 drones to 150,000 units per phase while reducing target unit costs from $5,000 to about $3,000.
According to DOD, the DDP is intended to field more than 200,000 lethal, AI-enabled drones by 2027.
Gauntlet II is scheduled to begin later this summer. As the competition expands into night operations and more complex urban and confined environments, participants will be required to bring 120 drones each, according to the department.