Alphabet's Eric Schmidt to Lead Pentagon Board to Make Defense Department Tech Savvier

The Pentagon is turning to Silicon Valley. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced plans to create a new “innovation advisory board” for the bellicose department and appointed Alphabet chairman and Google CEO emeritus Eric Schmidt to lead it.

Filling out the rest of the board will be up to 12 leaders who have “excelled at identifying and adopting new technology concepts,” according to the Pentagon’s press release.

“The board’s mandate is to provide department leaders independent advice on innovative and adaptive means to address future organizational and cultural challenges, including the use of technology alternatives, streamlined project management processes and approaches — all with the goal of identifying quick solutions to DoD problems,” the release went on.

The board comes amid relatively tense relations between the government and tech, as the Apple standoff with the FBI over the San Bernardino terror attack investigation continues to boil. Most big Silicon Valley companies have come to Apple’s defense.

Alphabet’s Schmidt, a longtime lover of such entangled tensions, introduced a new policy arm last month, called Jigsaw, under Google’s Alphabet parent company, whose first initiative is around cyber attack protection. Google’s parent company, it should be noted, has several potential business ties to the defense industry, including its enterprise software and robotics units.

Carter and Schmidt are expected to unveil the board later today at the RSA Security Conference.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via