Pentagon reduce DTIC civilian workforce to just 40 people
The US Department of Defense will reduce the civilian workforce in the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) to just 40 people according to a memorandum disseminated among senior Pentagon officials on 4 August 2025.
According to figures from the Office of Personnel Management the administration will lay off 193 people, or 80% of civilian workers in this field activity. The Undersecretary of Defense expects these actions to save the Department around $25m per year.
DTIC serves as a critical enabler for defence. It is a centralised repository for decades of research and development (R&D) data for use across the armed services. The unit is older than the Pentagon itself; it was formed just two months before the end of World War Two.
Now, however, the field activity will be shaken up through the government’s efficiency policy that has already seen sweeping changes across the Pentagon. The administration has already dismissed more than 5,000 probationary civilian staff in the department, and ousted at least another 1,000 personnel who fall under the government’s bracket of “gender dysphoria.”
Furthermore, the Acting Administrator of DTIC, Dr Silvana Rubino-Hallman, a performance improvement officer with several responsibilities across government, will conduct a “zero-based core mission review” for all contractor personnel augmenting DTIC staff and will direct cognisant contracting officers to issue any stop-work-orders as appropriate.
In its current state, the memo noted that DTIC’s “unfocused organizational model and legacy information platform are not suited to keep pace with global R&D, take advantage of Artificial Intelligence (AI), or integrate with other data and intelligence systems that support strategic deterrence-impacting R&D investment decisions by the Department of Defense.”
One of the Trump administration’s priorities is to hasten the lengthy defence procurement processes. The Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claims that a lot of this comes down to needless bureaucracy, from which the burgeoning costs will be reallocated to the acquisition of lethal weapons systems and investing in technologies to speed up the business processes.
The latest memo restructuring DTIC touches on this, as the Undersecretary of Defense wrote that many of these positions will be offset by an “AI-first digital transformation.”
At a time when defence is experiencing a global technology skills gap, tools based on AI, low-code platforms, and automation are more relevant than ever.
AI will enable informed decision-making at unparalleled speeds. Defence organisations must be agile and responsive by design to work effectively and outpace adversaries according to a GlobalData thematic briefing.
