US Department of War is preparing to request $50 billion from Congress this year for the mass production of hundreds of thousands of unmanned systems and their large-scale introduction into the armed forces, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at the annual conference of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) in Washington.

Hegseth characterized this funding as a one-time investment, rather than regular annual allocations. According to him, this request is part of efforts aimed at making such technology available in significantly larger quantities.

The $50 billion is not included in the Pentagon’s main budget request for fiscal year 2027, which already includes $53.6 billion for the Drone Dominance initiative, which includes the acquisition of unmanned systems and means of combating them, providing logistics in the face of adversary resistance, and developing technologies.

The US Secretary of War noted that the Pentagon must facilitate the entry of new companies into the defense market, which has long been dominated by large, long-established contractors and expensive platforms.

As per Hegseth, traditional defense enterprises are still important, but the US Department of War needs cheaper systems also that can be produced in mass quantities.