A huge contract to integrate AI into army decisions: the Pentagon is betting $500 million on Scale AI

What if the Pentagon let artificial intelligence choose in times of war? The US Department of Defense has awarded a $500 million contract to help with data analysis and decision support to a start-up specializing in AI.

This contract, valued at $100 million last September, was multiplied by five in the space of 8 months, according to a press release from Scale IA, published this Wednesday.

« Learn about the operational capabilities of the AI ​​of the American arm »

“As the era of small-scale AI pilots gives way to enterprise-scale deployment, the infrastructure decisions that the Department of Defense makes public will shape the operational capabilities of the AI of the American army for the coming decade,” said Kathryn Harris, head of defense at Scale AI, 49% owned by the powerful Meta group.

Since the start of Donald Trump’s second term, his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been working to accelerate the adoption of AI at the Pentagon. In January, he outlined plans to expand the use of AI tools and eliminate what he described as bureaucratic barriers slowing the adoption of new technologies.

Earlier this month, the Department of Defense announced agreements with OpenAI, Alphabet, Nvidia, SpaceX, Amazon and Reflection for increased use of advanced AI tools in military operations.

Scale AI therefore joins this list. The start-up, founded by 29-year-old billionaire Alexandr Wang, would also work on the Defense Innovation Unit program to integrate AI into military planning and operations alongside Anduril and Microsoft, as well as on the Golden Dome anti-missile shield proposed by President Donald Trump.