Weekly News Update: Nov 10, 2023
4 - 10 Nov 2023
Good morning and Happy Veteran’s and Remembrance Day to those of you that have served or are currently serving. You have shouldered incredible responsibility at great risk to stand stalwart against tyranny, oppression, fascism, extremism, and other ideologies that would destroy our countries, nations, and civilizations.
This week saw some big movements geopolitically, as the United States and NATO have suspended participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, following Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the treaty. We’re continuing to see increased global polarity as Russia-China-North Korea-Iran try to form an axis opposed to rule of law and the global order.
Israel continues operations to root out Hamas terrorists in response to their widespread and brutal attack against the state last month. Iran continues to support Hamas and other proxies across the Middle East in attacks against Israel, the United States, and others to try to broaden the conflict.
This week has seen a lot of activity in artificial intelligence with Elon Musk unveiling his new LLM, named Grok, OpenAI unveiling Chat GPT 4 Turbo, Microsoft releasing Copilot to help companies with coding, and a new Chinese AI company rivaling the U.S. companies. This week was also a big one in earnings season for aerospace and defense, with Astra, Rocket Lab, BlackSky, Telesat, Airbus, and more releasing Q3 results.
Let’s dive in to these and other issues surrounding aerospace and defense technology.
Weekly News Round Up
Military
U.S. Defense modernization and innovation
Pentagon CIO takes 5G reins amid focus on future networking tech (C4)
Next-gen GPS ground system expected to come online this summer (BD)
Official: Air Force mulls making T-7 into F-7 armed light attack jet (BD)
Air Force may remove 105mm cannon from AC-130 gunship (DN)
Army highly unlikely to field hypersonic glide weapon this year (C4)
Army eyes $3.1B ammo production spending boost in new spending request (DN)
Marine Corps eyes lighter .50 cal machine gun to reduce weight (Mil)
Navy surface drone fires its first missile during Middle East exercise (NT)
Europe, Russia, the Arctic, NATO, and the war in Ukraine
U.S., NATO suspend participation in Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe following Russian withdrawal from pact (WSJ)
State Department tells Congress, ‘Putin wins if U.S. cuts support to Ukraine’ (ASF)
Grenade in birthday gift kills aide to Ukraine’s senior military officer (WP)
Private jets of Russia’s rich keep flying but not to Europe (RT)
Russia to stick with voluntary oil exports cuts until year-end (BBG)
China, Korea, and Asia
SecDef heads to Indo-Pacific as space race heats up on Korean peninsula (ASF)
China’s Shandong air craft carrier sails into South China Sea (USNI)
More executives vanish in China, casting chill over business climate (WSJ)
China’s fight against deflation may be far from over (BBG)
It’s U.S. vs China in an increasingly divided world economy (WSJ)
Middle East and Africa
Yemeni Houthis shoot down U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone (MT)
U.S. launches strikes against Iran-backed militants in Syria (MT)
Eisenhower strike group, submarine arrive in Middle East (NT)
White House notifies Congress of plan to transfer $320M of precision bombs to Israel (Fx)
Massive surge in the buying of Israel bonds from the United States (CNBC)
Al Qaeda and Islamic State linked groups take root on coast of West Africa (AP)
U.S. Defense Industry News
U.S. considers Israeli request for hundreds of Aerovironment Switchblade-600s attack drones(DS)
Poland set to sign MQ-9B Skyguardian contract with General Atomics soon (BD)
HII, Babcock to help build Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarine enterprise (BD)
Kall Morris secured $4.25M from SpaceWerx to support debris removal tech (HT)
Lockheed to upgrade Chilean Air Force F-16s (DN)
Rocket Lab to launch hypersonic test vehicle for Defense Innovation Unit (SN)
SES won a five-year blanket purchase agreement worth up to $270M for mid-earth orbit satellite services (SN)
Foreign Defense Industry News
L3Harris partners with Australia’s NIOA to produce domestic ‘rocket motors, boosters, and warheads’ (BD)
Israel may buy back Iron Dome air defense batteries leased from U.S. (DN)
Sweden commits to future fighter procurement decision in 2031 (BD)
Rocket Factory Augsburg won $4.3 from the UK Space Agency to develop launcher (SWG)
UAE’s Edge Group takes over Swiss unmanned helicopter maker Anavia (C4)
United Kingdom signs $5B air defense deal with Poland (FT)
U.K.’s BAE receives $211.5M order for 40 ACVs from U.S. Marine Corps (DD)
Space
Putin calls for closer China-Russia cooperation on military satellites (C4)
S. Korea to launch first domestically built spy satellite (C4)
ESA inks deal with Airbus and Voyager Space on Starlab (SN)
Bulgaria becomes 32nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords (SN)
Slovenia applies for full ESA membership (SWG)
Nuclear Power & Weapons
Top US nuclear board advisers are tied to arms business (TG)
Russia decries Israeli junior minister comment on nuclear attack (RT)
U.S. says reliance on Russian nuclear fuel is security risk (FT)
AI, Energy, Robotics, and other Tech
Task Force Lima explores 180+ use case for generative AI for military (DS)
At its first ever developer conference, OpenAI announces the development and release of Chat GPT-4 Turbo, a significant improvement of the model that allows greater customization and better understands complex instructions (TV)
China’s Kai-Fu Lee’s company 01.AI has hit a $1B valuation after 8 months, offers an open-source AI large language model that experts believe may outclass Meta’s LLaMa 2 LLM (TC)
After more than a year of alarmism around AI and LLMs, Elon Musk has unveiled xAI’s first LLM, named Grok (VB)
Meta's free AI isn't cheap to use, companies say (TI)
Microsoft’s GitHub announces Copilot assistant that can learn about companies’ private code (CNBC)
Electric planes, once a fantasy, start to take to the skies. (NYT)
Former Apple designers launch $700 Humane AI pin as smartphone replacement (CNBC)
A&D-Focused Finance
Intel in lead to get billions for secure defense-chip facilities (WSJ)
Tidal Cyber, a threat-informed defense company, raised a $5M seed round led by Squadra Ventures (PRN)
Finnish hyperspectral imaging company Kuva raises $17.6M from Voima Ventures and Nordic Foodtech VC (TC)
RTX raised $6B through a five-part bond sale to help repay a short-term loan that will cover the cost of its $10B share-buyback (BBG)
Satellite imagery startup BlackSky reported first quarterly profit of $675K on $21.3M revenue (CNBC)
Rocket Lab reported a $40.6M net loss in the third quarter, aims to get Electron rocket flying again in November (BW)
Virgin Galactic to cut flights and staff, sees gains on news (SN)
Astra founder Chris Kemp and Adam London have announced an offer to take the company private at $30M valuation (SN)
SpaceX projects $9B of sales in 2023 and $15B of sales in 2024 (BBG)
Telesat reported $128M of quarterly revenue, a 3% YoY decrease (YF)
Airbus sees earnings rise, despite unidentified satellite program charge of $320M (RT)
American Airlines dangles $250k bonuses to poach FedEx and UPS pilots (WSJ)
Shares of Spirit AeroSystems fell ~15% after the aerospace supplier announced plans to raise $200M through the issuance of common stock and $200M through the issuance of convertible debt maturing in 2028 (RT)
U.S. chip company Vishay Intertechnology agreed to buy Newport Wafer Fab for $177M from Chinese-owned Nexperia (FT)
Quantum computing startup Photonic raised a $100M round from BCI, Microsoft, and others (BW)
Nubis Communications, a photonics startup, received a $6M investment from TDK Ventures (PRN)
IperionX, a titanium producer, raised $16.7M in funding led by B Riley Principal Investments, Fidelity International, Inherent Group, and others (BW)
Sift, a startup building an end-to-end telemetry stack, raised a $7.5M round led by Riot Ventures, Fika Ventures, and First Resonance (TC)
IBM debuted a $500M enterprise AI venture fund (AX)
Bain Capital will acquire government and business consulting firm Guidehouse in a $5.3B deal (RT)
Cyber defense startup Wraithwatch raised an $8M seed round led by Founders Fund (FN)
Chip designer and supplier GCT Semiconductor will merge with Concord Acquisition Corp III in a $461M deal (BW)
Important Reads
PitchBook released a report on surging VC funding for US-based defense-tech specialists since 2021, amid a push for military innovation.
Yorktown Institute’s Bill Rivers and U.S. Army officer Matt DiRisio discuss how autonomous underwater vehicles could enable survivable resupply.
Urban warfare expert John Spencer assures us that Israel is abiding by the laws of war in Gaza.
Ben Thompson gave a detailed breakdown of OpenAI’s recent keynote presentation.
Lighter Side
Keep building!
Andrew