Sen. Sasse calls on Senate to increase DARPA funding

U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) called on the Senate to double the funding for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through his amendment to the Endless Frontiers Act.

Sasse said increasing DARPA’s funding to $7 billion a year for the next five years would allow America to compete with the Chinese Communist Party.

“Beijing is aggressively investing in automated machine learning, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing,” Sasse said in his remarks on the Senate floor. “They’re hacking and stealing America’s research and intellectual property. The Chinese Communist Party is on a mission, and they’re not hiding it. They want to become the world’s preeminent superpower, and they think that, by claiming first-mover advantage in the cyber domain, they can achieve it. We can’t let that happen.”

The funding would allow DARPA to continue its research into the nation’s most critical security challenges, including developing tools to identify and disrupt Artificial Intelligence-enabled cyber and information campaigns, as well as creating the technological tools needed to push back on China’s hybrid warfare, Sasse said.

“If we want American democracy to outlast Chinese techno-authoritarianism – we can make this investment,” he said. “Doubling DARPA’s budget is a cost-effective investment that bolsters the work of Endless Frontiers, and I encourage all my colleagues to support this.”