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The following information will help you make the most of OODAcon 2025.
The final agenda for the day can be found below, including a full description of each session, links to connect with speakers and moderators, and additional OODA Loop resources on the themes and topics discussed over the course of the day.
Thank you to all of the Diamond and Gold Sponsors of OODAcon 2025 (that are also listed below).
For a PDF version of the OODAcon 2025 Program, go to the following link:
7:00 – 8:00 Registration and Breakfast
8:00 – 8:30 Architecting the Edge – Welcome to OODAcon 2025
This opening session will set the tone for OODAcon 2025 by examining the inflection points shaping the global landscape, from accelerating AI and fusion energy breakthroughs to heightened geopolitical friction and the retooling of industrial strategy. It will provide an executive-level preview of the technologies and national security trends driving this year’s discussions and offer a call to action for navigating disruption with clarity, agility, and foresight.
8:30-9:15 Offense, AI and the Future of U.S. Cyber Power: A fireside chat with the National Security
Council Cyber Architect, Alexei Bulazel
A thematic throughout the day is how accelerating the right use of AI and the right tools will impact U.S. national security including Cyber Power.
9:15-9:35 Quantum Advantage in Action: Lessons from DEFCON’s Quantum Village
The quantum revolution is no longer theoretical, it is materializing across computing, sensing, and security. This session will explore the state of quantum readiness, including updates on trapped ion and superconducting platforms, the race toward quantum networking, and the impact of NIST’s post-quantum cryptography standards. Executives will leave with a practical understanding of how quantum disruption is unfolding in the next 12–18 months, and what steps they should take to prepare.
9:35-9:55 Hardware Supply Chain Security and the HBOM
Hardware Bill of Materials (HBOM) advances supply chain security by bringing transparency to the components and dependencies in hardware systems, mirroring the role of Software BOMs (SBOM) in helping organizations proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities. Learn the latest on this new approach which can allow rapid response and risk management when flaws or threats are discovered.
10:00-10:30 Networking and Coffee Break
10:30-10:50 Outpacing the Adversary: Accelerating Innovation with Urgency and Purpose
Time-to-field now defines success. This session looks at how leaders can move from pilots to capabilities that scale, integrate across silos to create momentum, and apply adversarial thinking to stay ahead of fast-moving competitors. Drawing on lessons from intelligence and industry, we’ll examine what it takes to build strong foundations, align innovation with mission, and form the partnerships that let us outpace the adversary.
10:50-11:20 Securing Internet First Principles: Access, Privacy, and Expression
in the Age of Disruptive Technology
This fireside chat with the CEO of Snowstorm examines issues of privacy. Data is being captured everywhere, from edge devices and satellites to biometric wearables and smart infrastructure. This session will examine how governments, corporations, and malicious actors are weaponizing data at scale using AI, and what it means for civil liberties and organizational risk. Strategies for preserving privacy, operational security, and resilience in the face of ubiquitous surveillance will be discussed.
11:20-11:40 Privacy in Prelude: Serene Live at OODAcon
Serene’s music is celebrated for its passionate interpretations and technical mastery, spanning a vast repertoire from Bach to contemporary composers, and she is especially noted for her performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, described as “unprecedented” by the Liszt Academy. Her performances often merge classical piano with technology-driven audiovisual elements, creating immersive experiences that reflect both her artistic and engineering backgrounds.
11:40-12:15 Lunch Begins
12:15-12:45 Lunch and Annual Global Threat Brief
This high-impact briefing will examine the most urgent and emerging global threats that decision-makers must track. From cybercrime-as-a-service and regional conflict escalation to systemic risks in energy and technology supply chains, this session will provide a concise, scenario-driven view of where the world is heading, and what it means for your organization.
12:45-1:15 Data at the Edge: Subsea and Sustainable Next-Gen Datacenters
Gain new insights into how deploying subsea data centers at the network edge can dramatically improve sustainability and reduce operational costs by leveraging the ocean’s cooling properties and proximity to renewable energy sources.
1:15-2:00 AI, Space, Automation, and the Impact on Modernizing the Military
This session explores the transformative impacts of Space, AI and Automation upon U.S. national security. Panelists will discuss how advanced technologies are enabling new approaches to protecting our way of life and deliver actionable insights that will drive decisions in the coming year.
2:00-2:30 Afternoon Break
2:30-3:30 From Automation to Autonomy: Navigating the Next Wave of AI Agents
This panel will examine the realities of AI as it is being applied to real world enterprises, with a focus on how to navigate the coming age of Agentic AI.
3:30-4:00 Navigating the Deep Future: From Strategic Foresight to Action
This session will draw on years of national security and innovation leadership to explore how strategic foresight can drive better decision-making in an era defined by cascading crises and continuous disruption. Attendees will be challenged to rethink planning assumptions and adopt more adaptive, anticipatory approaches to strategy.
4:00-4:45 China’s Disruption Strategy
The PRC’s efforts to assert dominance across AI, biotech, space, and advanced manufacturing are increasingly strategic and coordinated. This session analyzes China’s integrated approach to reshaping global technology standards and supply chains while expanding influence through legal, cyber, and gray-zone tactics. Expect an unclassified but deeply informed look at how these moves affect U.S. competitiveness, national security, and the global innovation order.
4:45-5:00 Wrap Up followed by Happy Hour
The Architecture of Acceleration: From Double Exponential AI to De-dollarization: Frames a systems view of “double exponential” AI and global financial realignments, including de-dollarization signals. Proposes operating principles for leaders navigating compounding tech curves and macro shifts.
Exponential Innovation and National Security Investment: Updating the Defense Industrial Base Acceleration Playbook: Updates the DIB acceleration thesis by linking capital mobilization, acquisition reform, and dual-use ecosystems. Outlines near-term moves to convert pilots into programs at speed.
Architecting for Emergence: AI Agents and Enterprise Design – Explores design patterns for agentic AI in complex organizations, covering orchestration, guardrails, and socio-technical change. Emphasizes modular architectures to capture emergent capability safely.
Bill Hagestad’s RedDragon1949: “China’s Networked and Intelligent Warfare Strategy Is Accelerating“: Analyzes PLA doctrine around “intelligentized” and networked warfare and its acceleration trajectory. Highlights implications for U.S. operational design and industrial readiness.
What Do You Know About HBOM? Zero-Trust Hardware Starts With Provenance: Introduces the Hardware Bill of Materials (HBOM) as a prerequisite for zero-trust compute. Focuses on provenance, verification, and supply-chain security for hardware assurance.
Subsea, Space, and AI Sovereign Power: A Future That Does Not Suffer from a Failure of Imagination: Connects subsea cables, orbital infrastructure, and AI compute to national sovereignty. Argues for bold, integrated strategies across these critical domains.
The Reality of Quantum Innovation: Examine what is real and what is hype at OODAcon: Separates quantum signal from noise with a readiness lens. Offers criteria and milestones to assess real-world progress versus hype cycles.
Lessons Learned about Offensive AI: The DARPA AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) and Team Atlanta’s Victory: Captures technical and operational lessons from AIxCC on automating vulnerability discovery and exploitation. Points to secure-by-design imperatives and red-team-at-scale practices.
Does China Have Strategic Dominance over the Global IT Supply Chain?: Evaluates leverage points across manufacturing, minerals, logistics, and standards. Assesses risk exposure and options for resilience.
From Palau to the Pacific Rim: Undersea Nodules, Rare Earth Supply Chains, and Reviving U.S. Offshore Resource Strategy: Examines critical-mineral options from undersea nodules to regional partnerships. Proposes policy and investment pathways for U.S. resource strategy.
Geoeconomic Futures: The Americas, The Northern Frontier of Mexico, The Arctic, and Africa: Surveys geoeconomic theaters and strategic chokepoints across the Western Hemisphere, Arctic routes, and Africa. Highlights scenario drivers shaping trade, security, and investment.
The New Strategic Economy: Geoeconomics and the Architecture of Influence: The global economy is no longer a neutral playing field of markets and efficiency – it has become a weaponized domain where states use finance, trade, technology, and energy as instruments of power. This shift, known as geoeconomics, marks a decisive break from the late-20th-century era of neoliberal globalization.
Geoeconomic Futures: The Americas, The Northern Frontier of Mexico, The Arctic, and Africa: This integrated assessment explores how these transformations are unfolding across the Americas, the Northern Frontier of Mexico, the Arctic, and Africa, drawing from recent OODA Loop analyses. Across the Western Hemisphere, great-power competition, regional reindustrialization, and emerging technologies are reshaping strategic frontiers. The world is entering a new phase of geopolitical realignment, where economic multipolarity, technological acceleration, and environmental disruption collide.
Operationalizing Privacy: The Future of the Internet Is Being Written in Code, Compute, and Culture with SnowStorm: The upcoming OODAcon 2025 session “Securing Internet First Principles: Access, Privacy, and Expression in the Age of Disruptive Technology” – a fireside chat with SnowStorm CEO Serene—arrives at a critical inflection point for global digital governance. As OODAcon 2025 convenes leaders across technology, defense, and policy, this fireside chat will mark a crucial step toward operationalizing the founding ideals of the internet for an era defined by AI, surveillance, and disruption.
Quantum Summit Provides Update on Government Preparations for Q-day: The NextGov Quantum Summit, held 27 August 2025, underscored the urgency of preparing government and industry networks for a post-quantum world. Experts from MITRE, the Linux Foundation, Cloudflare, Quantinuum, IBM, DHS/CBP, CISA, and others highlighted both the disruptive risks posed by cryptographically relevant quantum computers and the opportunities to leverage quantum innovations for secure communications and national competitiveness.
Strategy for Migrating to Automated Post-Quantum Cryptography Discovery and Inventory Tools: To stay ahead of emerging threats, federal agencies must proactively adapt their cryptographic systems to withstand future quantum computing capabilities. This strategy outlines how automated tools can help ensure a smooth and effective transition to post-quantum cryptography.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and OODA Network Member Dawn Meyerriecks on Strategic Foresight and Operationalizing Biosecurity: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and OODA Network member Dawn Meyerriecks – both commissioners on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) – warn that biotechnology now stands at the same strategic inflection point once occupied by semiconductors and artificial intelligence. The Commission’s report, mandated by Congress and delivered to the White House and DoD, calls for urgent modernization of U.S. bio-innovation governance to counter China’s accelerating state-driven biotech expansion.
Strategic Foresight: The OODA Guides to Scenario Planning: In today’s fast-changing environment, where traditional models of stability are increasingly obsolete, scenario planning is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. Businesses that integrate scenario thinking into their strategic cycles gain a crucial advantage: the ability to adapt faster, seize emerging opportunities, and protect against blindside risks. This resource aggregates OODA’s most relevant articles, case studies, and tools on scenario planning, providing business and government leaders with the insight and structure needed to build futures-informed strategies. The entire OODA Loop site has been built to inform decisions with actionable intelligence. We have also produced several references designed to accelerate your scenario planning.
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Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
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