Army Eyes Faster Weapons Development with a New Collaboration Hub

When the Pentagon wanted to expand its tech outreach beyond Silicon Valley, officials looked to Boston, opening the second DIUx location there in 2016. The Army Research Laboratory is now joining them, setting up its own “open campus” in the city to help make its innovation efforts more nimble and cutting-edge. ARL’s Northeast campus, officially launched today after a few months of building partnerships, joins three other regional collaboration offices the lab has set up over the last two years. Whereas DIUx, or the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, was set up by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter specifically to woo the tech industry, the ARL open campuses are meant to bring together U.S. government scientists with both industry and academia.