Microelectronics are the foundation of technology today, but what about tomorrow? Ten years from now? Twenty?

Real breakthroughs don’t come from simply refining what already exists—they come from reimagining what’s possible. In this episode, Dr. Whitney Mason, Director of DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), takes us inside the research that is pushing microelectronics beyond conventional thinking. She explores the potential of organic circuits to revolutionize computing, not by replacing existing technology, but by opening entirely new frontiers in electronics design. From assessing the potential of quantum computing to novel material innovations that could redefine performance and efficiency, MTO is driving advancements that go far beyond conventional chipmaking.

Dr. Mason also shares her perspective on how DARPA’s risk-taking culture enables groundbreaking discoveries, and why the speed of innovation is critical to maintaining U.S. technological advantage. She discusses MTO’s focus on next-generation manufacturing approaches that integrate best-of-breed materials to achieve disruptive performance leaps. By moving beyond traditional microelectronics and embracing unconventional ideas, MTO is working to create the future of technology—one where microelectronics aren’t just smaller and faster, but smarter, more resilient, and capable of things we have yet to fully envision.

Show notes and links:

Dr. Whitney Mason

Microsystems Technology Office

Voices from DARPA Episode 42: The Infrared Visionary

Voices from DARPA Episode 72: The Quantum Mechanic

QBI: Quantum Benchmarking Initiative

AMME: Additive Manufacturing of MicrosystEms

NGMM: Next-Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing

Episode 85 posting date: January 31, 2025

U.S. national security depends on an aging IT infrastructure that supports a vast network of systems spanning the globe. Over the past three decades, traditional security practices—like virus scanning, patching software, and intrusion detection systems—have led to a landscape of vulnerable systems. The Department of Defense is no exception, where legacy IT systems and even the most advanced fighter jets and weapons platforms are susceptible to exploitable weaknesses.

But this doesn’t have to continue being our reality.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, we explore the agency’s groundbreaking work on revolutionizing software development. At the forefront of this transformation is the use of formal methods—a powerful, mathematical approach that ensures robust security and guarantees the absence of vulnerabilities in software systems. Join experts from DARPA and its strategic partners as they explore how these cutting-edge tools are reshaping the security landscape and paving the way for a future where vulnerabilities are not just minimized but provably absent—across the U.S. military and beyond.

Show Notes

·      Current DARPA programs leveraging formal methods:

o  AI Quantified (AIQ)

o  Assured Autonomy

o  Assured Micropatching (AMP)

o  Automated Rapid Certification of Software (ARCOS)

o  Intrinsic Cognitive Security (ICS)

o  Pipelined Reasoning of Verifiers Enabling Robust Systems (PROVERS)

o  Provably Weird Network Deployment and Detection (PWND2)

o  Safe Documents (SafeDocs)

o  Verified Security and Performance Enhancement of Large Legacy Software (V-SPELLS)

·      High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) overview, research paper, and Little Bird demo video

·      National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Workshop on Secure Building Blocks for Trustworthy Systems (segment at 7:23:49)

·      Voices from DARPA Episode 51: The Cybersecurity Sleuth, featuring former DARPA program manager, Dr. Sergey Bratus

·      DARPA Forward: Engineering Secure Information Systems video presentation

What characteristics make a person trustworthy? Under what circumstances would a person delegate life or death decisions to artificial intelligence (AI)? Does it matter that AI systems reflect trustworthy humans’ decision-making preferences, morals, and ethics? If so, what characteristics are most important?

These are some of the fundamental questions DARPA researchers are exploring for the In the Moment (ITM) program, which aims to support the development of algorithms that are trusted to independently make decisions in difficult domains, particularly in significant trauma events such as battlefield triage.

DARPA’s research has identified the need for fundamentally different approaches to advance AI technology to a place where we’re willing to trust it and not be foolish to do so. Continuing themes from our mini-series on ELSI – ethical, legal, and societal implications of new technologies and capabilities – we meet with DARPA’s ITM program manager, Dr. Patrick Shafto, and the ITM performers and ELSI advisors, who break down how they’re tackling the fundamental question of alignment in the context of human decision-makers and autonomous decision-making tools.

In case you missed them, check out our previous ELSI series episodes at the following links:

Episode 79: Integrating ELSI

Episode 78: Introducing ELSI

Our special thanks to the following ITM performers and advisors for their contributions to this episode (in order of their appearance):

·        Alice Leung, RTX BBN

·        Joseph Cohn, SoarTech

·        Matthew Molineaux, Parallax Advanced Research

·        Arslan Basharat, Kitware Inc.

·        Jennifer McVay, CACI

·        Dave Cotting, Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA)

·        Sarah Daly, IDA

·        Lauren Diaz, University of Maryland Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS)

·        Ellie Tyler, ARLIS

Accomplishing DARPA’s mission of creating and preventing strategic surprise is as much a business challenge as it is a technology challenge.

In this episode, team members from DARPA’s Contracts Management Office – Office Director Effie Fragogiannis and Deputy Director Catherine Stevens, along with Senior Advisor Scott Ulrey – explore what it takes to innovate contracting processes and mechanisms to enable the development of breakthrough technologies at the speed of relevance.

From DARPA’s pioneering work with Other Transactions, to fast-pitch proposals, to the exploration of previously unrealized authorities, hear how the agency is breaking down the barriers of government contracting, providing companies a clearer path to the national security mission.

Links:

Acquisition Innovation

Collaborative Disruption at DoD – Kathleen Hicks – American Dynamism Summit

Acquisition Innovation: From Other Transactions to Fast-Pitch Proposals

Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Other Transactions Guide

DARPAConnect

In this episode, Dr. Jean-Paul Chretien and Elissa Rupley from our Biological Technologies Office provide an exciting update from the recent DARPA Triage Challenge (DTC) workshop at the Guardian Centers in Perry, GA.

The DARPA Triage Challenge, or DTC, aims to drive breakthrough innovations in identification of “signatures” of injury that will help medical responders perform scalable, timely, and accurate triage. Of particular interest are mass casualty incidents, in both civilian and military settings, when medical resources are limited relative to the need.

We also hear from Alix Donnelly, from the U.S. Army's Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) and some of the participating DTC Team Members on their experience thus far in the competition.

There are still opportunities to get involved – listen to learn more!

Links:

DARPA Triage Challenge

Dr. Jean-Paul Chretien bio

DTC Workshop 1 highlight video

DTC YouTube Playlist

In this episode, Dr. Vishnu Sundaresan from our Defense Sciences Office highlights several technology programs designed to precisely control chemical processes to enable distributed, small-batch manufacturing of chemical products while retaining efficiencies of large-scale industrial production. Colloquially calling this portfolio “decentralized chemistry for everything,” the concept aims to shift the paradigm from a few centralized production facilities producing medicines in large batches and requiring a costly purification process, to direct manufacturing of pure pharmaceuticals via desktop printer-sized machines that would create — at the push of a button — doses of a variety of medicines whenever and wherever needed. Such a revolutionary capability — if successful — would circumvent brittle international chemical supply chains and would serve military members deployed in remote locations as well as benefit rural civilian communities.

Sundaresan describes programs aiming to achieve elements of this vision: Spin-COntrolled chemical Process Engineering (SCOPE), Recycling at the Point of Disposal (RPOD), and Establishing Qualification Processes for Agile Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (EQUIP-A-Pharma).

Listen to Sundaresan describe his journey to becoming a DARPA program manager, the fascinating world of controlling electron spins, and the ethical, legal, and societal challenges of preparing the market for such revolutionary tech.

In this episode, we’ll be taking a deeper dive into ELSI – ethical, legal, and societal implications of new technologies and capabilities – and specific examples of how DARPA programs have incorporated those considerations into their structure.

We’re highlighting three examples of how DARPA integrated ELSI throughout the program lifecycle via the counsel of experts from the medical, scientific, legal, and ethics communities to assist program managers and performers in identifying and mitigating any potential issues.

The first program, out of our Biological Technologies Office, is Safe Genes, which supported force protection and military health and readiness by developing tools and methodologies to control, counter, and even reverse the effects of genome editing—including gene drives—in biological systems across scales.

The second program, Urban Reconnaissance through Supervised Autonomy (URSA) from our Tactical Technology Office (TTO) aimed to enable improved techniques for rapidly discriminating hostile intent and filtering out threats in complex urban environments.

And, finally, the current In the Moment program in our Information Innovation Office (I2O) seeks to identify key attributes underlying trusted human decision-making in dynamic settings and computationally representing those attributes, to generate a quantitative alignment framework for a trusted human decision-maker and an algorithm.

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYSbEnamSDA  
• iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-from-darpa/id1163190520 

Show notes and links: 

• DARPA currently is seeking applicants for the 2025 ELSI Visiting Scholar. The deadline to apply is June 3, 2024.
• Voices from DARPA Episode 78: Introducing ELSI : https://blubrry.com/voices_from_darpa/132452728/episode-78-introducing-elsi/  
• ELSI History: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK231976/  [quoted in Roberts, 1989]. 

Highlighted Programs: 

In the Moment (ITM): https://www.darpa.mil/program/in-the-moment  

Urban Reconnaissance through Supervised Autonomy (URSA): https://www.darpa.mil/program/urban-reconnaissance-through-supervised-autonomy  

Safe Genes: https://www.darpa.mil/program/safe-genes  

Safe Genes Publications: 

• Interdisciplinary development of a standardized introduction to gene drives for lay audiences 

https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12874-020-01146-0 

• A typology of community and stakeholder engagement based on documented examples in the field of novel vector control 

https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0007863#:~:text=The%20typology%20names%20three%20types,and%203)%20engagement%20to%20involve. 

• Codes 

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/crispr.2020.0096 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd1908 

As a global leader in innovation, DARPA starts an average of 50 new programs each year. These programs span a variety of technical disciplines to develop breakthrough technologies for national security, all of which have the potential to raise ethical, legal, and societal implication – or, ELSI – considerations.

Taking time to consider ELSI’s role in a program can contribute to the responsible development of emerging technologies by guiding innovation, maximizing the potential application space, and facilitating dialogue with future end-users, and the public, to ensure diverse perspectives and implications are considered. It can improve research by fostering conversations that identify unknowns, anticipate consequences, and make design decisions to maximize benefits and opportunities and minimize risks and harms.

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, we’ll hear from DARPA Director, Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, to explain the agency's perspective on those implications, as well as Dr. Bart Russell, deputy director of the Defense Sciences Office, on what it would mean to incorporate ELSI across the agency more formally. Finally, Dr. Rebecca Crootof, DARPA’s inaugural ELSI Visiting Scholar, will discuss her journey to the agency and her approach to developing a process to ensure that ELSI can inform — and even improve —DARPA programs.

That sounds like a lot of responsibility, influence, and potential impact – for some, maybe, too good to be true?

Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications of Emerging Technologies at DARPA

DARPA currently is seeking applicants for the 2025 ELSI Visiting Scholar. The deadline to apply is June 3, 2024.

Origin of the term ELSI: Three decades of ethical, legal, and social implications research: Looking back to chart a path forward

The piece references a class from Dr. Oona A. Hathaway

Good ideas can come from anywhere, but what is the best way to find them, or help them find you?  

In 2022, DARPA hit the road in pursuit of the answer. Comprising six regional events, DARPA Forward took the agency across the country to engage untapped talent and strengthen the nationwide innovation ecosystem. The event series offered a powerful lesson in breaking down barriers of entry in pursuit of national security breakthroughs.  

To sustain this momentum, DARPA launched DARPAConnect, an initiative that aims to further broaden the agency’s reach and foster greater collaboration with underrepresented, diverse, and nontraditional institutions new to the national security space.  

In this episode of Voices from DARPA, we’re taking a deep dive on DARPAConnect, talking with several of those involved in the initiative to get a sense of how it all works. We’ll explore its goals, its offerings, and what success looks like at DARPA, home to some of the biggest – and riskiest – bets on U.S. technological innovation.  

DARPAConnect website: https://www.darpaconnect.us/home  

In this episode we hear from quantum physicist Dr. Mukund Vengalattore, a program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, who oversees a portfolio of fundamental research programs aimed at unlocking new quantum insights and overcoming challenges to enable revolutionary capabilities for defense. These include harnessing atoms and superconducting structures for novel sensing applications (imagine tiny, super-sensitive antennas, infrared detectors or gyroscopes that vastly outperform much larger antennas, IR cameras, and gyroscopes of today); developing better quantum bits (qubits) for quantum computing (including using photons to encode information in novel ways); enabling field-deployable, tactical-grade mobile atomic clocks for our troops; and discovering new quantum materials for applications ranging from quantum computing to biomedical imaging.

We’re also joined by Dr. Mikhail Lukin, professor of physics at Harvard University, who led a team on Vengalattore’s Optimization with Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum devices (ONISQ) program that made a major quantum breakthrough published in Nature recently. Lukin’s team exploited characteristics of Rydberg neutral atoms tocreate logical qubits and used them to demonstrate the first-ever quantum circuit, a key step to advancing novel quantum computing architectures (Vengalattore provides a primer on the Rydberg atomic state). You’ll also hear about “optical tweezers” – which use laser beams that can be controlled to precisely grab and move around individual qubits without destroying their quantumness — and how they helped enable the breakthrough. To read more about the ONISQ logical qubit breakthrough visit: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2023-12-06

Normally, we’d recommend you jump right into the episode, but this time, a primer may be helpful. We suggest starting with our recent Quantum Mechanic episode before you take a deep technical dive to the subatomic level for a fascinating window on the vast frontiers of quantum exploration… and potential applications in the real world.