HONOLULU — The U.S. military currently relies too heavily on foreign sources for critical materials. The Pentagon needs to invest in the manufacturing processes of the future by boosting U.S. materials innovation and leveraging artificial intelligence, officials said at a recent industry conference.

Efficient manufacturing is key to delivering critical capabilities to the warfighter at speed and scale, regardless of location, said Tracy Frost, director of the technology innovation industrial base in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology.

“If we can’t make it securely, if we can’t make it where they’re at, we can’t get it to them,” Frost said during a panel discussion at the National Defense Industrial Association’s recent 2025 Pacific Operational Science and Technology Conference. “If we can’t make the quantity they need, and we can’t make it at a cost that’s affordable, then we can’t equip our warfighters with the best capability out there when they need it.”

The department’s goal is to minimize and eliminate reliance on foreign sources of critical materials by pushing for the advanced development and discovery of new materials or new uses for materials, a concept Aisha Haynes, principal director for advanced materials in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, called “materials innovation.”

Critical materials such as rare earth elements are used in a variety of components found in defense systems — from batteries to lightweight metal. While the United States has an abundance of these elements in the ground, the majority of critical material refineries are in China, allowing the nation to have a near monopoly on their production and leaving the United States in a “material crisis,” Haynes said.

“Our adversaries have figured out how to deny us access to critical materials that we need in order to ensure that we can move our technologies forward,” Haynes said. “It is very, very important to ensure that we figure out how to circumvent that and fast.”

The gap in the United States’ ability to produce materials, components and defense technologies compared to its adversaries has widened, leaving its supply chains vulnerable, Haynes said.

It is “imperative” the department invest in materials innovation and artificial intelligence to build more autonomy into modern manufacturing processes and bolster the development cycle, she said.

“I’m not sure that, given the current climate [and] our global standing in terms of materials, without using these advanced tools, we’re going to be able to get over some of those barriers and accelerate those technologies,” Haynes said. “We can’t afford to wait 20 years, we can’t afford to wait 50 years for the next silicon-based solution.”

Reducing the length of the development cycle and the time it takes to deploy critical capabilities is where AI and autonomy can help improve traditional processes and circumvent supply chain issues.

Greg Hudas, acting director of sustainment technology in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said the problem with AI in manufacturing is that the department is grappling with the “the data problem” of conducting both robust data collection and efficient data analysis.

“You can’t have AI without the data, and that’s going to be essential,” Hudas said. “It also incurs costs. And then how do we treat that as a capability and/or a product? That’s going to be important.”

Since data storage and analysis play an important role in AI and materials innovation, the department must also prioritize efficient data-sharing with allies, Hudas said.

“Why should we have duplicate data sets if we’re working closely in a joint force atmosphere with our allies?” he said. “We’ve definitely got to look at that.”

In addition to bolstering materials innovation and leveraging AI, Hudas said the Defense Department must adequately understand and anticipate gaps in manufacturing technology.

“How can we start to extrapolate the gaps that are coming?” he said. “These technologies are transformative. We don’t want to do any incremental things here. We have funding across the department to do this. We want to transform [and] get these things out there, but we need to understand those gaps.”

Manufacturing is not strictly a defense problem, Haynes added.

“The fact that we’re losing access to critical materials, I think there’s an opportunity for us to pull together and start to work toward how we [can] build the manufacturing space for materials of the future,” she said.