Q&A: Lockheed Martin’s Hiza expects AI, quantum to play role on battlefield of the future
Sarah Hiza spends her days thinking about 2030 and beyond.
As senior vice president for technology and strategic innovation, she’s focused on the technology Lockheed Martin will need when the next decade comes around. She also oversees Lockheed Martin Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm.
Hiza, who assumed this role late last year, previously was vice president of engineering and technology for Lockheed’s rotary and mission systems business.
I interviewed Hiza about how Lockheed Martin Ventures operates and what she expects on the battlefield of 2030. Below are selected excerpts of the conversation, condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Q: Let’s talk about Lockheed Martin Ventures. How does the company work with it?
A: It’s a really important piece to us for a couple reasons. One is it keeps us very informed on what technologies are budding out there and [allows us to be] a part of reinforcing that ecosystem. When we see some of those technologies that really could be gamechangers, we want to give that signal as one of the biggest defense contractors.
We also see it as possibly a secondary source, if we have a single-point failure within our supply chain. If we see a company coming up and maybe they’re going to have a different way to apply technology or a different process, but we see it as resiliency in our supply chain, that obviously provides value to us, especially if we see a weak point there.
And then there’s just a general education of being informed the best we can as good stewards of the capabilities and technologies out there. And some of those may or may not have been designed to be applied in the defense world.
Sometimes it’s not obvious straight away to someone in the business area why we think a certain company is of interest, but that role of LM Ventures can really provide a bridge to, “Hey, this may not be a typical defense technology, but we think we could apply it here on these systems or in these missions.”
Q: What is a good candidate for an LM Ventures investment or partnership?
A: A big part of this job is determining what is organic and we should be investing in internally, and what is inorganic — whether that’s through LM Ventures or otherwise. We have a really good idea of our core, and I’ll even call them our crown jewels: the things that are true discriminators and really are our trademark that distinguishes us on our products and in the marketplace.
Now those — it would take a lot for us to really be convinced that a new company has surpassed us. But if you think of it from there and concentric circles out, then we are very much interested in what technologies, what companies, and what processes. If folks have determined a different way, a more efficient way, a really advanced way of delivering something, that is also something we’re really interested in.
The further away you get from that core, as far as the concentric circles, the more interested we are, and it’s also probably areas that we aren’t investing in internally.
Sometimes I’ll say there’s more specificity to that, which is if there’s a new program or we’re in a competition, often the business area will say, “This is an area we’re weak in as we’re going after this new program. LM Ventures, will you go out and do some research to see what companies are out there to fill this gap?”
Q: What do you think of as the crown jewels or the differentiators you don’t need help on?
A: I’m going to speak generically. The first is, above all else, that we have demonstrated our ability to scale. We can scale whether that’s at a software level, whether that’s a software factory, or we’re able to scale whether it comes to platforms, like aircraft or missiles. While that may seem maybe not exciting, it’s really important because we have a history of overcoming the valley of death.
We know how to take technologies and then — this is the second piece — integrate them from all different places in the supply chain. So we can integrate software, the firmware, the hardware, get the testing done, demonstrate and scale up production and deliver a reliable product.
I believe scale and integration are absolutely key elements of Lockheed Martin’s core crown jewels, and certainly there are technologies beneath there that are important and are enabling, but I believe that capability has brought us to where we are today and will take us into the future.
Q: Given that you’re someone who spends your days thinking about 2030, what do you think the technology on the battlefield will look like then?
A: I do believe artificial intelligence will be playing a role. What I don’t know yet is that boundary of where artificial intelligence will behave or act autonomously or where it’s more of a tool or an aid. That’s still to be seen and to be determined jointly with our customers.
I also think that quantum is TBD. I think it will play an important role in cybersecurity and sensing and other things. How far it has matured by 2030 I don’t know, but I do think it’s going to have an important role.
I think that we will have at least a hybrid workforce — hybrid as in human and we’ll also have agentics. What does it look like when you have an agentic bot on your org chart and that there is actual defined scope that is given to an agentic?
And while that may not be applied out in the field, it’s a big change here in the office, and thinking about how we use them. Those would be small language model agentics. But I think that they’re coming, and they will be more than just an aid or a tool.
