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Opportunities for Commercial Companies from Congress’s $150B Spending Plan to Modernize the Defense Industrial Base

By Steve Empedocles, CEO, Clark Street Associates, emped@csa.co

Article | May 12, 2025

Although many media accounts have emphasized the desire of the Trump Administration to cut spending, a recent Bill released by Congress is planning to spend $150 billion to enhance our military readiness, almost $50 billion of which will be spent deploying advanced technologies from commercial companies to modernize the (non-weapons) segments of the industrial base that supports the U.S. military. This funding, which is substantially more than the grant funding given to commercial companies under President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will be used to develop, build manufacturing, and deploy a wide variety of dual-use technologies (commercial technologies that are also useful to the military, like AI, robotics, semiconductors and critical minerals).

$150 billion extra funding is a lot, even for the DOD. And no one has defined the plan to spend it all, yet. This creates an extraordinary opportunity for commercial advanced technology companies to help shape the funding opportunities that will develop over the next 6-12 months, maximizing their chance of winning these funds. This white paper provides insights to help companies make informed decisions about what they can be doing right now, to ensure they don’t miss this window of opportunity to leverage this government funding to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and deployment of their commercial technologies.