Pentagon fast-tracks "Golden Dome" to counter missiles. Advanced AI and satellite tech promise a generational leap in homeland defense, with testing beginning soon.
Kris Osborn, Warrior
“A generational investment” was the phrase used by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding the highly anticipated and prioritized homeland defense “Golden Dome” effort, a series of advanced technologies intended to defend the US against ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons.
Conceptual and developmental work has already been underway, and the Pentagon has taken specific steps to remove bureaucratic hurdles and expedite Golden Dome development with the intent of initial testing beginning in 2028.
The Pentagon has been reviewing hundreds of Golden Dome industry proposals which arrived in Oct, 2025 .. for the program called SHIELD, for Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense.
Pentagon Outlines Golden Dome Concepts of Operation
The most important elements of Golden Dome, in terms of technological specifics, are not available for security reasons, yet the Pentagon is already working intensely with its industry partners … many of whom attended a recent Golden Dome public industry day in August of 2025. Without mentioning technical details related to specific offerings, many industry partners and offering advanced technologies to the Department of War.
While entirely unclassified, the Golden Dome industry day in Huntsville, Ala., was only discussed in a general way given the importance of security to the missilon. An interesting essay in Defense One on the Golden Dome Summit cited a statement on the event from the Department of War.
“The Golden Dome for America office is examining current and future solutions across the services and interagency to identify the most effective ways to modernize and quickly field the capabilities our nation needs to protect our homeland, ” Office of the Secretary of Defense said in a statement provided to Defense One.
Command and Control
While specific offerings are not available, industry experts are discussing some of the broad technological parameters likely to define ongoing discussions and testing regarding Golden Dome, as the threat equation is of course known to be serious. Any potential solution is almost certain to involve advanced AI and multi-domain networking. For example, Medium and Low Earth Orbit satellites are being launched by the hundreds to increase redundancy, optimize throughput and help support advanced targeting systems able to track an incoming projectile from one radar aperture or field of view to another. Establishing a “continuous track” is extremely difficult for missile defense systems, particularly in the realm of hypersonic weapons .. as they do not follow a traditional ballistic missile trajectory and maneuver at unprecedented speeds.
Golden Dome & AI
As part of the Pentagon’s surge forward with early innovations for its Golden Dome homeland defense system, US military industry partners are also likely to be assessing how artificial intelligence can support national defensive efforts.
While there are many potential applications, one critical area exists in the sphere of discrimination and target verification, as AI-enabled algorithms can bounce incoming sensor information off of a vast data base to distinguish targets from decoys and instantly support defensive intercepts.
AI-enabled systems can aggregate, organize and perform analytics on otherwise disparate pools of incoming sensor data. It seems almost self-evident that Golden Dome will need to connect sensor data from satellites, drones, manned ISR fixed wing platforms, ground based command and control and even surface ships using Aegis radar to track ballistic missiles.
AI can prove particularly significant in the realm of sensor-to-shooter pairing, as it can bounce verified target information against a database compilation to recommend an optimal shooter or countermeasure for a given threat scenario. Perhaps the area is cloudy so a laser weapon will not be effective? Perhaps it is a populated area, so a kinetic effector may not work as explosive material could damage civilians?
Perhaps the attack is in the form of a drone swarm or salvo of ballistic missiles requiring a deep magazine of interceptors, proximity fuse to generate an “area” explosion against multiple targets or even EW to “jam” the RF signal of a group of attacking drones at one time. This kind of AI-enabled ability could support Golden Dome kinds of defenses against incoming rockets, mortars, ballistic missiles or even hypersonic attacks.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University