How the CIA is tapping private sector ingenuity that’s reshaping the world | Steve Bowsher In-Q-Tel

Transcript

[Music] artificial intelligence drones Quantum Computing biotechnology these are some of the most Innovative and sensitive things being born out of the Ingenuity of the American private sector but how are these things intersecting with global conflict intelligence and National Defense one of the outfits that's been sitting in the middle of that intersection through the first quarter of this century is inel essentially a venture capital firm begun with US taxpayer money and operating under the purview of the Central Intelligence Agency CIA to invest in cuttingedge companies developing some of the most futuristic technologies that are reshaping our world I'm guy Taylor National Security editor at the Washington Times and for this edition of the threat status special video series we're grateful to be joined by inel president and CEO Steve Bower Steve you've had a long career focused on identifying and leveraging emerging Technologies for the US National Security Community what is in qel really what is its Mission and uh why is the CIA involved great well thank you first of all very much for asking me to me on the show I'm I'm very excited to be here uh incel is an independent not for-profit where 51 C3 that was created by CIA 25 years ago to bridge the gap between the Innovation occurring in the Venture back startup companies here in the United States and the technical challenges facing the agency at the time what was controversial back then and more readily accepted today is that the great uh Innovation engine in the United States is these Venture back star companies and if you think about the Technologies you use in everyday life whether it's your Apple iPhone your Facebook your Alexa electronic device all those uh companies Apple Amazon Facebook were at one time Venture back startup companies and CIA realized that in order for them to be able to accomplish their mission they had to access uh uh uh Innovation that was occurring in these uh startup companies and they weren't able to do that through their traditional procurement mechanisms so they created inkel and as you said inkel is an investment uh uh platform form we invest in these startup companies for two reasons which I'll get to in a second but uh the point I would make is as a not for-profit we're a strategic investor we're not investing for financial return we're Investing For strategic purpose and that strategic purpose is to help CIA and now the nine other other government agencies that we work with achieve their mission we invest in companies for two reasons the first reason is we invest in companies to deliver capabilities to CIA NSA and other agencies we work with and by that I mean when we make an investment we also facilitate the pilot in of those Technologies uh uh by the agencies we work with and if the pilot goes well the end agency will contract directly with uh the portfolio company for more stuff more licenses more gadgets whatever they sell and we call that an adoption when that happens the second reason we invest is to deliver Insight it's important for the CIA and other uh government agencies to understand where commercial technology is going how uh they may be able to take advantage of it but also how their adversaries may take advantage of it China uses uh commercial technology is a strategic lover in nation state competition that's important for the US government agencies we work with to understand what they're up to all right but but most of the the companies that inel invests in are publicly announced on the funds website one of the most prominent being Peter the's pollen tier correct uh an investment in AI applications there are many others like trans Celestial clear space big eye companies that most Americans haven't heard of can can you give me an example of a successful investment into something that's having World shaping relevance sure I I'll give you two if you don't mind first is a company called Rocket lab so uh rocket lab is in the commercial space industry and that was an industry that 15 years ago didn't really exist uh if you wanted uh satellite capability uh you had to uh uh uh use a satellite typically built by a Boeing or a locked Martin uh uh funded by the US government and uh a set of people started uh to build uh small cheaper uh uh more maneuverable satellites uh and this was the idea of uh commercial satellite industry being born but in order to launch those satellites in in the sky they needed a launch vehicle that was specially purpose built for small satellites because the traditional launch Vehicles were uh built to launch really large expensive uh satellites for Boeing and locky we invested in a company called Rocket lab uh out of New Zealand so uh interesting fact Factor there uh and it was the first uh commercial launch company focused on small satellites this company has now become very successful as a public company and it has ushered in by providing this capability a world in which now there are commercial satellites up in the sky such as starlink that people uh uh are are using for internet access that uh would not be able to be up launched and operating in the sky without a small satellite launch uh industry that rocket lab is L okay the second company I point out in industry is synthetic biology uh this is the ability to build organisms from uh uh uh certain materials instead of having them uh develop in nature we invested uh several years ago in company called Geno bioworks out of Boston that's in the synthetic biology uh uh area they make products that are used in food in Pharma and in cosmetics actually and this was uh gko was one of the first companies uh in this space and again by investing early in both rocket lab in Geno we were able to provide our agencies access to this technology early understand its various applications and through work programs we are able to uh help those uh agencies take advantage of them so we're really talking about the intersection between these developing Technologies and US intelligence or national security what is it about the global threat Matrix today that makes this relevant and important what why is is inel so involved in this and sure let's look out at the Middle East Wars for instance or great power competition with China absolutely the threat Matrix that the United States faces today I I believe has never been more dangerous or threatening not to use the word twice certainly in my lifetime so we have uh near peer competitors in Russia and China that are aggressively trying to reshape the GE geopolitical landscape and claim more power control and influence for themselves uh uh and and we're seeing that in conflicts that exist right now in Ukraine and conflicts that could potentially exist in the South China Sea we're also seeing at the same time uh because of uh emerging Technologies and Commercial Technologies a shrinking of the gap between the Davids and the goliaths out there the the the uh uh used to be there were a handful of company countries that had significant technical Advantage when it came to military operations over the rest of the world and I think that is dangerous uh uh for the United States at the nation state level China is uh using commercial technology as a strategic lever wuwei is a way that they project power and influence geopolitical events around the world uh whoever controls the Next Generation telecommunication systems whoever controls uh uh satellites in the sky whoever controls uh uh the shipping lanes on on the sea all those uh uh commercial Technologies are going to be a way to project power and influence geopolitical events and the UN United States needs to stay at The Cutting Edge of those Technologies in order to remain the preminent economic and National Security power so since being founded in 1999 with about $50 million in US taxpayer money uh uh and there there have been many more Millions appropriated through Congress but inel has really grown through its investments in the private sector to be about a billion doll uh VC fund and investing in in something like 700 companies is that right over the last 25 years and at this point there are actually inel offices in a few different corners of the world why are the there these overseas offices and I mean one has opened I think this year or last year in Singapore for instance what's going on with that right so you are correct we've invested in over 700 companies in our lifetime uh uh the vast majority of them are here in the United States we invest somewhere between 10 to 15% uh of our deals are outside the United States uh uh in such exotic locals typically as Great Britain and Australia uh in New Zealand and we do that because the United States does not have a monopoly on Innovation we're still the most Innovative country in the world which is why 85 uh uh to 90% of our investments are here in the United States but there are certain categories of companies such as the rocket lab the one that I mentioned from New Zealand that our government agencies can leverage their technology to help achieve Mission and we want to provide them access to do that so today we have or the vast majority of inel employees are in our three us offices uh here in uh the DC area um uh in Silicon Valley and in Boston but we do have uh offices in uh uh England Germany uh Australia and Singapore and those offices provide us the ability to stay on top of the Innovation that's occurring elsewhere we do not invest in companies in China and Russia and other uh uh places like that because our agencies are not going to take advantage of the technologies that are built there but they are going to take advantage of Technologies built in uh the UK in Canada in Australia New Zealand how are you preventing technology that inel invests in from either being stolen by or ending up in the hands of some us adversaries China for example right so every time we make an investment we uh uh set up a briefing for that company with our uh security team and we talk to them about best practices when it comes to cyber security when it comes to physical security and when it comes to uh IP protection China is out there trying to uh access uh technology through a variety of manners they try to uh buy it and copy it they try to uh uh buy it by the companies and and repatriate the technology back into China and they try and steal it at times and so we do our best to uh uh brief our companies and just like any other uh company in the defense industrial base those companies need to uh uh do everything they can to protect themselves from Chinese attacks let's talk a little bit about the defense industrial base or it could be called the military industrial complex we're at a moment now with the Pentagon announcing something called the replicator program which has really only recently been defined in the public narrative right as uh something that's shifting conventional US military power toward more of a marriage if you would with Silicone Valley and uh emerging technology Ai and there are a lot of implications of this including uh generative AI that can help automated uh airplanes drones communicate with each other in previously inconceivable ways what can you tell me about rep replicator and I know that in qel the companies that inel invests in have applications Beyond intelligence we're also talking about DOD and the Pentagon what is the relevance of this replicator shift right now sure so if you look at the conflict uh conflicts I should say both in uh Ukraine and Gaza one of the things that uh uh everyone's looking at those conflicts to get Clues as to what the next generation of conflict looks like and one of the things people are observing is that drones have a big uh role to play in there and my point before about the shrinking of the gap between the Davids and goliaths Ukraine are using commercial off the-shelf drones to disrupt very high price very expensive very exquisitly capable Uh Russian Airborne uh platforms similarly Hamas used to S slip underneath the Iron Dome to attack uh Israel and so uh uh drones and and are going to be a clear uh important platform in the future of of conflict and unfortunately the drones that are uh most uh capable of having impact are the cheap disposable attributable autonomous uh drones that China's been making for a number of years for the commercial markets in and the US does not really have a commercial drone manufacturing uh uh uh base and one of the goals of replicator I believe is to stimulate the growth of that because if we end up in a conflict with China we can't expect to be able Source materials and Manufacturing and and and and finished products uh uh from China so I believe the goal of replicator is to accelerate the uh development of our own drone uh industrial base because we see it as critical to the future of conflicts around the world Steve Bower uh this is incredibly interesting and informative thank you so much for joining us for this edition of the threat status special video series I'm guy Taylor until next time thank you