Chapter 1

What Project Meridian is

The memo's first paragraph names technologies it says are changing warfare, among others: artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, and biotechnology. Combined with new domains and new ways of fighting, it says, these developments "will profoundly alter the character of warfare" (Hegseth, 2026).

MemorandumSep 30, 2026View full memo

Primary source

The memo that commissioned Project Meridian

Dated September 30, 2026, and signed by Hegseth, the memo directs the department's chief technology officer, Emil Michael, to commission Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare through a partner organization (Hegseth, 2026).

Charge

Study the battlefields of the future, identify the weapons and technologies warfighters will need, and propose actionable solutions to start developing, testing, and fielding them.

Input

Perspectives from outside the Pentagon: top technologists, innovators, business leaders, policy makers, and national security experts.

Services

The Joint Staff and all services should be prepared to connect their future warfare efforts and research to the study.

Deadline

Findings and recommendations go to the Secretary's office within 120 days, on January 28, 2027.

“Project Meridian will study the battlefields of the future.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (2026, para. 2)

Read the full memo

The memo gives the study a primary function: trace the trajectory of future warfare, identify critical capability gaps, and propose actionable solutions that further the goals in the 2026 National Security Science and Technology Strategy (Hegseth, 2026). The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released that strategy in August 2026 (Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP], 2026).

Announced with 5 other initiatives

Meridian was 1 of 6 initiatives in Hegseth's State of the Force address (Oliverio, 2026; U.S. Department of War, 2026). Paragon Micro has guides on 2 of the others: the Autonomous Warfare Command, which has a target date of October 1, 2027 to stand up (Edwards, 2026), and FORTRESS America, the installation resilience program. The rest are a new Corps of Cadets, the Next Great American Base, and the Office of Religious Affairs (U.S. Department of War, 2026).

Chapter 2

Who is running Project Meridian

Hegseth commissioned the study. Emil Michael, the department's chief technology officer, is facilitating the commissioning through a partner organization (Hegseth, 2026; U.S. Department of War, 2026). Michael is also the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (Lopez, 2025). Neither the memo nor the release names the partner organization.

1. Commissions

   Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signed the memo and receives the findings.

2. Facilitates

   Emil Michael, the chief technology officer, handles the commissioning.

3. Partner organization

   The memo routes the commission through a partner organization it does not name.

4. Codirects

   Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich lead the study.

5. Supports

   A team of academic, policy, and industry experts works with them.

Sources: Hegseth (2026); U.S. Department of War (2026).

The 3 codirectors

The memo describes the wider group as top technologists, innovators, business leaders, policy makers, and national security experts from outside the Pentagon (Hegseth, 2026).

What the services are asked to do

The memo tells the Joint Staff and all services to be prepared to connect their future warfare efforts and research to Project Meridian (Hegseth, 2026). Program offices with work in the memo's technology areas can prepare now by documenting how their current efforts relate to those areas.

Chapter 3

The 120 day timeline

The memo sets the deadline: findings and recommendations go to the Secretary's office no later than 120 days after the announcement, on January 28, 2027 (Hegseth, 2026). The release says the project ends with an unclassified final report released to the public, accompanied by a classified annex (U.S. Department of War, 2026). Neither source gives a date for publishing the report.

The 2 deliverables

For most suppliers, the public report is likely to be the first look at the recommendations.

Chapter 4

The scope: from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier

The release says Project Meridian will examine "the full spectrum of future warfighting domains, from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier" (U.S. Department of War, 2026). Subterranean means underground: tunnels, bunkers, and buried facilities. Cislunar space is the region between Earth and the Moon, including lunar orbit.

The national strategy the memo points to already sets priorities in several of those domains (OSTP, 2026).

1. Cislunar space

   The region between Earth and the Moon

   The strategy calls for the ability to detect, characterize, and counter threats to U.S. space interests from very low Earth orbit through cislunar space (OSTP, 2026).

2. Earth orbit

   Satellites for communications, navigation, and sensing

   Space is 1 of 3 priority areas for battlefield dominance that the strategy takes from the 2025 National Security Strategy (OSTP, 2026).

3. Air

   Aircraft, missiles, and drones

   Air superiority and long range strike are on the strategy's list of other critical areas (OSTP, 2026). Scaled hypersonics is 1 of R&E's 6 critical technology areas (Lopez, 2025).

4. Land and sea surface

   Forces, vehicles, ships, and the logistics behind them

   Contested logistics technology is 1 of R&E's 6 critical technology areas (Lopez, 2025).

5. Undersea

   Submarines and undersea systems

   Undersea is another of those 3 priority areas (OSTP, 2026).

6. Subterranean

   Tunnels, bunkers, and buried facilities

   The strategy calls for positioning, navigation, and timing technologies for settings that include subterranean and underwater (OSTP, 2026).

Where the 3 priority lists overlap

The memo names 5 technology areas. The national strategy lists 3 priority areas for battlefield dominance, taken from the 2025 National Security Strategy, and R&E named 6 critical technology areas in November 2025 (Hegseth, 2026; Lopez, 2025; OSTP, 2026).

Shaded items appear in some form on at least 2 lists.

AI is the only area on all 3 lists. Autonomy, directed energy, and biotechnology each appear on 2. Robotics appears only in the memo. Until the report is out, these overlaps show where White House and department priorities already agree.

Chapter 5

What follows: develop, test, field

The memo asks Meridian to propose actionable solutions "to start developing, testing and fielding these capabilities" (Hegseth, 2026). The release says the study will find advanced systems and speed their fielding (U.S. Department of War, 2026). If the department turns the recommendations into programs, they would run under the acquisition system Hegseth set up in November 2025.

The acquisition system the work would use

Hegseth's November 7, 2025 memo renamed the Defense Acquisition System the Warfighting Acquisition System (Barna, 2025). These 4 changes matter most to suppliers:

• Portfolio Acquisition Executives make cost, schedule, and performance decisions, with speed as the priority.
• Commercial products and offerings are the preferred approach.
• Critical program content needs at least 2 qualified sources, unless waived.
• Programs use modular open system architectures, with competition at the module level (Barna, 2025).

The research priorities already in place

R&E cut its list of critical technology areas to 6 in November 2025: applied AI, biomanufacturing, contested logistics technology, quantum battlefield information dominance, scaled directed energy, and scaled hypersonics (Lopez, 2025). "Our adversaries are moving fast, but we will move faster," Michael said at the time (Lopez, 2025).

Chapter 6

What programs and suppliers should do now

Most of the preparation can start before January 28, 2027. The checklists below draw on the memo, the release, and current acquisition rules.

Where Paragon Micro fits

Paragon Micro is not part of the Meridian study. Its work starts after the findings, when programs need hardware sourced, built, tested, and delivered. Paragon Micro is a Dell Technologies Federal Platinum Partner and consolidates builds from multiple OEMs in a single secure facility (Paragon Micro, n.d.-a, n.d.-f).

Its System Readiness Center is a 55,000 plus square foot facility that validates configurations and stages and tests systems before delivery, in full compliance with NIST SP 800-171, with segmented environments for sensitive programs. Every system is logged and tracked, every component is verified, and handling is limited to vetted U.S. citizens (Paragon Micro, n.d.-f). Paragon Micro announced its AS9120 certification for aerospace and defense distribution on June 30, 2026 (Paragon Micro, 2026).

DoW buyers can order through ITES-4H, MDA SHIELD IDIQ, and GSA MAS products through EC America and Synnex (Paragon Micro, n.d.-b, n.d.-c, n.d.-d). NASA SEWP V is also available until its extension ends January 31, 2027, 3 days after Meridian's findings are due (NASA, n.d.; Paragon Micro, n.d.-e). See how Paragon Micro is postured for Project Meridian on our Advanced Projects page.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Timeline

Key dates

Project Meridian's findings are due January 28, 2027. Programs that already know their current efforts, their second sources, and their test plans will be in a better position to act on the recommendations.

Related reading

Sources

References