US Army uses vendor hackathons to force open-system C2 integration
The US Army’s “Right to Integrate” hackathons aim to break vendor lock-in by rapidly connecting dozens of systems via open-architecture C2—an approach likely to influence NATO and European interoperability expectations.
Key facts
- US Army launching “Right to Integrate” hackathon sprints to improve interoperability across battlefield and business systems
- First one-day event later this month at Fort Carson with engineers from major primes and software firms (incl. Anduril, Boeing, GD, L3Harris, Leidos, Lockheed, Northrop, Palantir, RTX)
- Army leadership cites Ukraine lessons and open architectures; aims to overcome proprietary interfaces and slow integration
3 minute read
The US Army is opening a new line of effort to tackle a chronic problem in modern force design: contractor-built systems that do not readily exchange data or integrate at the command-and-control (C2) layer. Under an initiative branded “Right to Integrate,” the service will convene major vendors in a series of one-day “hackathons” intended to accelerate practical integration work across “dozens” of battlefield and business systems, starting with an event later this month at Fort Carson, Colorado.
The Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, explicitly links the push to the war in Ukraine, arguing that speed and open-architecture constructs are operationally decisive in high-intensity warfare and that the US Army “hasn’t been moving fast enough.” The concept is positioned as a corrective to long-standing acquisition patterns in which primes deliver custom implementations with closed or proprietary interfaces, leaving the government dependent on vendor-specific solutions and struggling to adapt systems over time. The Army’s CTO, Alex Miller, reinforces this diagnosis, citing decades of standards efforts undermined by weak implementation and inflexible designs.
While the Army is developing a next-generation C2 platform with an open-architecture approach, the stated goal of the hackathons is to “deconflict” existing platform operating systems so they can begin exchanging data. The vendor list—Anduril, Boeing, General Dynamics, L3Harris, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir, Perennial Autonomy and RTX—signals that the Army is targeting both traditional primes and software-native players, and that the integration challenge spans sensors, weapons, UAS-enabling software, and enterprise systems.
For European defence officials and industry, the immediate relevance is the likely hardening of US expectations around government-held integration rights, interface disclosure, and open mission systems as prerequisites for participation in US programmes and, by extension, for credible NATO interoperability claims. If the Army can demonstrate measurable integration progress through rapid sprints, European land forces pursuing multi-vendor C2 and UAS integration may face pressure to adopt similar contractual levers and test-event cadences. European suppliers selling into US-led architectures should anticipate tighter requirements for documented APIs, data standards compliance, and support for third-party integration—areas that can collide with incumbent IP and sustainment business models.
Source: Defense One
