Timing to roll out US Army’s NGC2 depends on funds, commander says

The head of the U.S. Army formation leading the charge for fielding the service’s next-gen command-and-control system said Oct. 13 that the timeline of implementing the tech hinged on factors above his pay grade.

Commander of I Corps Lt. Gen. Matt McFarlane told reporters at a media roundtable in Washington that the desire to see the platform deployed across the formation by the end of fiscal 2027 was dependent on what the service was able to provide.

“Scaling and speed up is based on resources available,” said McFarlane. “That’s not in my job jar.”

The Army’s NGC2 platform will permit technologies, weapons, sensors, devices and applications from across the force to co-exist on the same network, streamlining decision-making during combat environments.

As the service expands the new platform across the I Corps, which oversees troops across the Indo-Pacific, the Army will get a close-up look at how the system allows military personnel and machines to communicate with each other over vast geographical distances and in communication-contested environments.

Among its many responsibilities, the I Corps works with Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, a U.S.-led joint military command headquartered in Germany that provides weapons and training support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

I Corps uses SAG-U to digest lessons learned from the unique military dynamics of the war in Ukraine and determine how to apply them to other potential conflicts worldwide.

The Army recently awarded defense tech company Anduril Industries a contract worth up to $1.8 billion to continue developing NGC2’s common data baseline, or software foundation.

Anduril, along with Palantir, Raft and Striveworks, has been refining the technology to help the service move NGC2 from the experimental phase to fielding.

The resources McFarlane referred to include funds, which are currently up in the air as the Senate still works to pass the National Defense Authorization Act.

With Congress currently in recess, the timeline for approval of those funds is murky.

The Army’s proposed budget for fiscal 2027 includes a $904 million request for the research, development and scaling of NGC2.