The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is set to open a regional office in Chicago next year to help the Defense Department connect to companies, investors and academic institutions across the Midwestern region that can support military technology requirements.

DIU said Thursday it will field reservists and work with multiple Department of Defense components that already have a presence in the region to conduct outreach efforts through the unit’s fifth office.

Heidi Shyu, undersecretary for research and engineering at DOD and a previous Wash100 Award winner, said that DOD needs the commercial sector to play a key role in force modernization initiatives. Shyu urged the department to encourage participation from non-traditional contractors.

According to DIU, the Midwestern businesses submitted fewer prototyping bids to the Commercial Solutions Opening program than those located in other U.S. regions.

Heidi Shyu will act as a keynote speaker during Potomac Officers Club’s 8th Annual Defense R&D Summit where elite government and industry leaders will come together to discuss the Department of Defense’s current innovation priorities, technology advancements and general strategy to stay ahead of the curve in the evolving defense sector.

Visit PotomacOfficersClub.com to learn more about the upcoming event. Don’t wait until the new year to register. 

Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood, the U.S. Army’s director for hypersonics, directed energy, space and rapid acquisition, said his office completed in late September the deployment of a hypersonic weapon system to the first unit at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington in order for the latter to start training using the system.

Thurgood, who also leads the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, told Defense News in an interview published Tuesday his office will conclude development and testing work on an all-up round or missile system.

“And so we have a series of flight tests over the next year and a half, 18 months, that will complete that work and so by the end of [fiscal year 20]23, which was our mission set, we will have a warfighting capability for our nation,” he added.

Thurgood discussed the semi-annual demonstration being conducted by the joint office responsible for counter-small unmanned aircraft systems. He mentioned upcoming plans to release a request for white papers on counter-UAS as a service and directed energy.

He provided information on the Directed Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense system, discussed work on hybrid electric vehicles and offered updates on the Indirect Fires Protection Capability program.

“For the IFPC program, we’ll make our decision on the laser and the high-power microwave August of ‘22. And then we have to deliver those first batteries in ‘24,” Thurgood said.

The Information Technology Industry (ITI) Council, a tech trade association, has provided the U.S. government with several recommendations to establish a resilient supply chain for semiconductors and address the current chip shortage.

ITI said Monday it offered five recommendations in response to a request for comments on semiconductor supply chain risks that the Department of Commerce issued in September and one of those is funding the Creating Helpful Incentives for the Production of Semiconductors for America Act and enacting a strengthened version of the Facilitating American Built Semiconductors Act.

Other recommendations are ensuring a non-discriminatory approach and cooperation with global partners, empowering resiliency and diversification, strengthening the tech workforce and caution that the request for comments’ data collection approach may not provide an accurate picture of semiconductor supply chain issues.

“Given the unprecedented demand for chips, ITI encourages the U.S. Government to remain focused on supporting and accelerating strategic investments in research, development, prototyping, manufacturing, and advanced packaging capacity across the semiconductor supply chain ecosystem, with a particular focus on gaps in U.S. capabilities,” ITI’s submission reads.

The Department of Energy (DOE) will invest $45 million in efforts to develop technologies that produce carbon-storing materials for use in constructing buildings. 

DOE said Monday that it will fund technologies that can reduce emissions linked to the production of these materials. The effort also aims to boost the capacity of buildings to store carbon and become net carbon negative as a result.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy will contribute $41 million to finance the Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) effort, which seeks technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when production is taking place.

DOE will provide an additional amount of $4 million to fund the development of tools for analyzing a building’s life cycle.

“Building materials and construction techniques offer huge promise as carbon sinks,” said Jennifer Granholm, secretary of energy.