As provided by Keith Duffy and Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Blaine Holt.
For years, Washington and Silicon Valley have been captivated by the promise of the “singular breakthrough”, one technology or platform capable of decisively tilting the global balance of power. Whether it was hypersonics, artificial intelligence, or quantum computing, policymakers have repeatedly gravitated toward the idea that a single leap could secure enduring strategic advantage.
But the world is no longer organized around singularities. It is shaped by ecosystems, where advancements in materials science, quantum research, aerospace engineering, AI, and advanced manufacturing are deeply interdependent. The nations that understand this interconnected reality will lead the 21st century. The nations that don’t will find themselves permanently behind.
Moonshots Don’t Win Contested Environments
The United States faces adversaries, particularly China, who are not pursuing innovation as a series of isolated programs. They are building full-spectrum development pipelines, integrating state-driven industrial policy with defense modernization, critical-materials control, advanced manufacturing, and dual-use R&D. Their objective is not to win one breakthrough. It is to dominate the ecosystem that produces breakthroughs.
Our current approach, by contrast, often separates disciplines into silos: AI here, quantum research there, materials science in another funding bucket, manufacturing in yet another. This fragmented structure slows progress and creates strategic vulnerabilities.
No AI-enabled defense system can operate without new materials and domestic manufacturing. No hypersonic platform can mature without innovation in thermal protection, composites, precision machining, and energy systems. No resilient command-and-control architecture can scale without advances in quantum-resistant materials, sensors, and secure aerospace platforms.
Moonshots win headlines. Ecosystems win wars.
The Physics Problem Is Now a National-Security Problem
Across the defense and commercial sectors, the same bottleneck appears physical constraints are limiting strategic capability.
Data centers and AI models require massive amounts of power and novel materials that today’s grid and supply chains cannot support.
Hypersonic defense requires advanced composites that remain available only in limited quantities and are heavily dependent on foreign suppliers.
Quantum computing demands manufacturing tolerances and materials performance that traditional processes cannot deliver at scale.
These challenges cannot be solved by any single technology. They require coordinated breakthroughs across multiple fields simultaneously, something only a robust ecosystem can provide.
Innovation Happens Where Disciplines Meet
America’s most consequential technologies, from stealth aircraft to GPS to the digital battlefield, emerged from the intersection of multiple scientific domains. The breakthroughs did not originate in isolation; they were the product of environments where chemists, aerospace engineers, materials scientists, data analysts, and defense strategists worked shoulder-to-shoulder.
We have drifted from that model. Today’s fragmented innovation landscape makes it harder for promising early-stage technologies to mature, harder for dual-use applications to reach military programs, and harder for industry to commercialize discoveries that originate in defense laboratories.
If the U.S. wants to preserve its qualitative military edge, we must return to an ecosystem mindset, one that accelerates discovery, strengthens domestic industrial bases, and reduces dependency on adversarial supply chains.
Ecosystems Are a Strategic Deterrent
The next decade of geopolitical competition will not be decided by who fields the best AI model or hypersonic platform. It will be decided by who builds the broadest, most resilient ecosystem capable of continuously producing integrated breakthroughs.
A strong American ecosystem would:
- Rebuild domestic manufacturing for critical materials and dual-use technologies.
- Accelerate the transition of early-stage science into deployable defense capabilities.
- Reduce reliance on foreign suppliers who can weaponize dependencies.
- Enable interdisciplinary teams to solve problems the Pentagon cannot address through traditional programmatic structures.
- Ensure innovation keeps pace with operational needs in an era of exponential technological acceleration.
In national security terms, ecosystems are a form of strategic deterrence. They signal to adversaries that the U.S. can innovate faster, pivot faster, and field capabilities that are deeply integrated across domains—air, land, sea, space, cyber, and industrial.
The Path Forward
America still has the world’s strongest research institutions, deepest entrepreneurial culture, and largest pool of scientific talent. What we lack is connectivity, and in some cases cash.
To compete in an era defined by cross-domain warfare, contested logistics, and rapid technological complexity, the United States must rebuild the connective tissue between R&D, manufacturing, and operational needs. That means investing not in isolated miracles, but in platforms that link materials science to aerospace, AI to quantum, laboratories to factories, and startups to defense primes.
The countries preparing for 2035 and beyond are not asking which breakthrough will win. They are building systems, pipelines, and ecosystems that will generate breakthroughs continuously.
If America wants to lead, we must do the same.
Keith Duffy is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Xeriant Inc, a career entrepreneur and champion of cultivating and commercializing technology at the highest level of impact and magnitude.
Brig Gen (ret) Blaine Holt is the President of Xeriant, Inc. Factor X Research Group, a former Deputy Representative to NATO, lifetime member on the Council on Foreign Relations, podcast host and Newsmax Contributor. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, Department of War, or its components.
