The US Department of Navy has published its updated list of technology priorities, offering a roadmap for startups and investors looking to build for military applications.
Navy CTO Justin Fanelli shared the list — jointly issued by his office and the Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Mission Systems — after vetting it with unnamed venture investors. The five priority areas are:
Applied AI, covering machine learning and agentic software for sensor fusion, targeting support, autonomous behavior, and cyber operations. This is the top priority.
Quantum information science, focused less on owning quantum hardware and more on applying quantum or quantum-adjacent techniques to navigation, secure communication, and cryptography.
Advanced networking, aimed at moving data securely across degraded or intermittent connections — whether a ship at sea or a coalition partner's network.
Electromagnetic spectrum operations, technology that senses and manages the spectrum itself in contested conditions.
Digital engineering and interoperability, covering open APIs, model-based systems engineering, and zero-trust architecture for system integration.
The priorities document comes as the Navy shifts its procurement strategy. Fanelli said the Navy now mostly buys from Series D through F companies, having previously funded its own early-stage research. It is trying to hand that role to commercial investors instead, which is why the priorities document exists — to cast a cleaner signal about where the Navy intends to buy.
Recent purchases illustrate the shift. The Navy awarded a $562 million contract this month for the MQ-25 Stingray autonomous refueling drone. It has also bought edge compute hardware from Armada, brought in Gecko Robotics for automated inspection work, and deployed Domino Data Lab for its machine learning pipeline.
In one case Fanelli highlighted, the Navy replaced a defense contractor's years-delayed shipboard camera system with commercial cameras paired with Applied Intuition software, cutting roughly four years off the timeline.
The Navy spends approximately $150 billion annually, though Fanelli distinguished that total purchasing figure from direct technology investment. The priorities are not funding commitments, the memo notes, and will change based on emergent needs.
