Hegseth to Unveil New Pentagon Drone Group, Senator Says

(Bloomberg) -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is setting up a new organization in the Pentagon to manage and deploy drones and defense robotics, according to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Basically, autonomous systems and robotics writ large are going to be placed in a more centralized and powerful organizational structure, instead of this random, dis-aggregated 'buy what you want and figure it out' structure," Republican Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana told Bloomberg News.

"It's going to be a true focus of the department," Sheehy said on the sidelines of a defense sector conference on Wednesday before Hegseth delivered his so-called State of the Force speech at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.

The Pentagon is seeking $54.6 billion for its Defense Autonomous Warfare Group in the 2027 fiscal year budget.

The new structure is intended to be permanent in nature instead of a temporary organization like a "task force," Sheehy said, though he added the new structure won't create a new service branch.

Hegseth has elevated the US military's use of drones and counter-drone technologies in planning and operations, including the deployment of a unit — Task Force Scorpion — using an attack drone based off of Iran's Shahed system.

Despite intense bombardment during the war that started on Feb. 28, US forces in the Middle East have struggled to halt Iran's ability to send volleys of cheap one-way attack drones across the Persian Gulf.