Thunderforge Project

Thunderforge Project is sponsored by Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). A project designed to integrate artificial intelligence into military operational and theater-level planning, enhancing decision-making processes.

Thunderforge Project: Integrating Commercial AI-Powered Decision-Making Mountain View, CA (March 5, 2025) – The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has awarded a prototype contract to Scale AI for Thunderforge, an initiative designed to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into military operational and theater-level planning, and fusing cutting-edge modeling and simulation tools.

The system’s end-state will accelerate decision-making, allowing planners to more rapidly synthesize vast amounts of information, generate multiple courses of action, and conduct AI-powered wargaming to anticipate and respond to evolving threats.

The Thunderforge technology solution will provide AI-assisted planning capabilities, decision support tools, and automated workflows, enabling military planners to navigate evolving operational environments. By leveraging advanced large language models (LLMs), AI-driven simulations, and interactive agent-based wargaming, Thunderforge will enhance how the U.S. military prepares for and executes operations.

The system will be deployed initially with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and U.S. European Command (EUCOM) to support mission-critical planning activities, including campaign development, theater-wide resource allocation, and strategic assessment. Thunderforge’s integration across multiple security domains ensures that AI-driven planning capabilities will be securely embedded into real-world military operations.

"DIU is INDOPACOM's innovation arm, helping us meet immediate challenges by harnessing and adopting commercial best practices to iteratively develop, test, and ultimately field emerging technologies at speed and scale,” said ADM Samuel Paparo, Commander of U.S.-INDOPACOM.

MG Peter Andrysiak, USEUCOM Chief Of Staff, said that Thunderforge builds on efforts made in the last year to digitize and enhance decision advantage through modernizing USEUCOM's C2 systems. "Our ability to consolidate, analyze, and act on vast quantities of theater-wide data across the warfighting functions has never been greater.

Thunderforge is a next step in this effort and will allow the US to keep pushing the frontier forward in terms of leveraging emerging technologies to modernize organizational efficiency," he said. "USEUCOM is eager to continue providing the operational context to inform these transformative changes."

Thunderforge marks a decisive shift toward AI-powered, data-driven warfare, ensuring that U.S. forces can anticipate and respond to threats with speed and precision. Following its initial deployment, Thunderforge will be scaled across combatant commands. “We are proud to be helping to accelerate the adoption of cutting edge commercial AI technologies across the DoD,” said Doug Beck, DIU director.

“Thunderforge is the foundation for the next generation of AI-driven military decision-making, enhancing the Joint Force’s ability to plan, adapt, and respond to emerging challenges at machine speed - helping the warfighter to deter major conflict, or win if forced to fight. ” The system will leverage Scale AI’s agentic applications and GenAI test and evaluation expertise.

Thunderforge will also include Anduril’s Lattice software platform and state of the art LLMs enabled by Microsoft. Team Thunderforge will deliver a unified planning ecosystem where AI agents simulate wargaming and planning scenarios and refine proposed courses of action.