The Future of Drone Warfare

a16z Podcast

a16z

Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

War has always been shaped by technology—from steel and gunpowder to GPS and nuclear weapons. But the decisive technologies of tomorrow aren’t coming—they’re already here. In this episode, recorded live at our third annual American Dynamism Summit, a16z’s Senior National Security Advisor Matt Cronin sits down with Ryan Tseng (cofounder & CEO, Shield AI) and Adam Bry (cofounder & CEO, Skydio) to discuss the rise of autonomous drones, AI-driven warfare, and the escalating great power competition with China. They cover: -Why drones are reshaping the battlefield in Ukraine, Israel, and beyond -The asymmetry of $1,000 drones taking out $10M tanks -Why U.S. drone production lags China—and how to catch up -The ethical and tactical implications of autonomy in combat -What it will take to reindustrialize America and maintain deterrence If the future of warfare is software-defined, who writes that software—and who deploys it first—matters more than ever.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The industrial capacity of China is fearsome.
0:05.0	Being able to deploy highly autonomous AI-driven drones at scale is still a domain that we can win in.
0:11.2	I think the technologies that matter most of the future of war are right there in front of us.
0:17.5	I think a modern conflict becomes basically like a software writing fight.
0:26.6	It will be the pace of deployment that is the make or break for militaries around the world.
0:27.6	The game theory here is just as simple and obvious as it can be.
0:31.6	Unless we find a way for industry and government to work together, we will find ourselves
0:36.6	in a very tough situation.
0:41.1	Will Durant once said, quote,
0:43.6	War is one of the constants of history, unquote.
0:47.4	And while the presence of war has not changed, the way it's conducted has.
0:52.1	It is technology, whether steel, gunpowder, radio, GPS, or nuclear weapons,
0:57.0	which have defined conflicts over the eras.
1:00.0	And while the images of tanks or machine guns dominate the visuals we have of war,
1:04.0	these are not the decisive technologies of the future.
1:08.0	And here's the thing. The future of warfare isn't coming, it's already here.
1:12.6	It's fought in the skies over Ukraine, Israel, and beyond by AI-empowered drones.
1:18.6	These drones have become a crucial weapon of war with asymmetric capability, where a handful of drones
1:24.6	costing hundreds or thousands of dollars can disable equipment like tanks or aircraft that cost orders of magnitude more.
1:31.1	We're literally off by like three orders of magnitude.
1:34.2	Within a few short years, drones have gone from a reconnaissance tool
1:37.8	to one that ensures aerial and battlefield dominance.
	...

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