The U.S. Navy announced an expedited recruiting pipeline to bring technology experts into the service to help build innovative products at scale.
The service is seeking professionals from the commercial sector and offering them direct commissions as an officer in the Navy Reserve in exchange for their expertise.
“This highly skilled unit will also include Navy Reserve sailors who will rapidly field, scale, and secure modern technologies for the global fleet,” the Navy said. “Prospect profiles will range from advanced expertise in quantum information, data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and autonomous and unmanned systems.”
Selected candidates can continue to serve in their civilian roles, but must demonstrate experience with open-source projects, patent applications, technology audits or published academic research.
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The program will also target individuals with experience in software engineering, cybersecurity, and offensive or defensive cyber operations, among other categories.
The Navy stood up the Navy Innovation Center in 2022 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, with the goal of investing in artificial intelligence and machine learning as adversaries ramped up their own explorations of the integral fields.
The Marine Corps Reserve’s Marine Innovation Unit was created the same year to find and collaborate with individuals who have the technology skills to solve some of the service’s modernization problems
The Defense Department operates a similar organization, the Defense Innovation Unit, which was founded in 2015.
The unit seeks out commercial technology for military implementation, helping identify promising technology that can be used on the battlefield.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.