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A View from the Top – Future of Defense: AI, Secure Supply Chains & Military Power

Axios x AWS X Exiger

A View from the Top

Partners AWS & Exiger on Securing Tomorrow’s Defense Infrastructure

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Learn more about defending your supply chain from present-day threats and future risk.

Hope King
Hope King
Events Moderator, Axios
Shannon Judd, AWS
Shannon Judd
Amazon Web Services, Director, Global Defense Partners
Derek Lemke, Exiger
Derek Lemke
SVP, Supply Chain Transformation

Axios Events Host and Moderator Hope King interviewed Amazon Web Services Director of Global Defense Partners Shannon Judd and Exiger SVP of Supply Chain Transformation Derek Lemke as part of the Axios Live Future of Defense: AI, Secure Supply Chains & Military Power event at the 2025 Paris Air Show. The discussion below has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Modernization Needs Predictability & Visibility

Hope King, Axios Moderator

Let’s start with the current landscape that you’re hearing from your clients and partners. The beauty of this conversation with both of you is that we get to have this wide-angle view of the entire defense supply chain landscape, and that’s because of your major digital infrastructure. So what are these pain points and what are the priorities?

Shannon Judd, Amazon Web Services, Director, Global Defense Partners

We are hearing a lot from the defense companies as well as aerospace companies that fundamentally the way they think about supply chain from a modernization standpoint and a profitability standpoint is dramatically changing. So, you think about things like resiliency and vulnerabilities. You look at how do you not rely on a single source or limited sources with some of the most critical components of your platforms.

Number two is around predictability and not the traditional way of looking at historical forecast as it relates to supply chain. But how can you leverage new technologies, advanced technologies like AI, generative AI, IOT and machine learning to build foundational models that are going to search out broader, similar issues to predict and prevent future shortages or future problems.

The third is a different lens on true collaboration in the industry where we’re seeing fundamental changes. And really to sum it up, the way to think about it is don’t look at how to solve supply chain again as the normal “how do I detect outages?” or “how do I find other parts?” Yes, that’s important, but it’s really building fundamental models to predict and again, look at supply chain as a strategic asset.

Derek Lemke, Exiger, SVP, Supply Chain Transformation

It’s a little bit of everything everywhere, all at once. That just comes back to the nature of supply chains. Look at the large defense primes that we work with, the governments that are building these supply chains, 90% of the world and the systems that are supporting these weapon systems, these airplanes, are outsourced. Shannon talked about critical dependencies and choke points. We see that day in, day out it could be a single source for a casting supplier that has to go on a gearbox in the F-35. It could be a single fastener that was sole sourced to a supplier that was recently hit by a fire.

Supply chains are open for disruption at any and all tiers. And so it’s getting visibility to that deep level within your supply chain. And not only that deep level visibility of the entities, but what are the products and what are the materials that really matter across the defense industrial base? Critical minerals and rare earths are especially important. We’ve seen recently China restrict exports of up to 13 critical minerals and rare earths that are critical, absolutely critical, for production capacity and supporting our defense industrial base.

So you’re getting down to the hole in the ground. How are we going to get to the hole in the ground across multi tiers of supply at that level of detail to understand what is our risk, what is our dependency? That’s where we’re helping customers today, helping them get to that level of visibility, but also work through the various tiers of supply so that they have data that they can act on.

Gen AI Breaks Silos, Brings Faster Answers

Hope King, Axios Moderator

We know Generative AI currently plays a role in providing visibility, risk mitigation, and diversifying in supply chains. What are some other ways it’s currently in use within the defense industry and operations, and how do you see it evolving as the technology advances?

Derek Lemke, Exiger, SVP, Supply Chain Transformation

First and foremost, it’s allowing us to move at a greater speed than we’ve previously been able to move. Second, and what I feel coming out of a large aerospace defense company, it’s allowing us to unite teams, to unite people around the same common data fabric that exists across their supply chain.

We look at a part that’s getting engineered, for example. We’re always in supply chain, we’re chasing parts, we’re chasing that problem. But what if we went directly to the engineer and said, “Hey, you’re designing a product that has antimony in it. You can’t get this material out of China right now. So maybe we look at an alternative option here.” For us, it’s about uniting stakeholders across all the supply chain from revenue down to folks in the field about those problems that exist and making sure that those clear signals are going to the right audience.

“For us, it’s about uniting stakeholders across all the supply chain from revenue down to folks in the field…”

Derek Lemke
SVP, Supply Chain Transformation

Shannon Judd, Amazon Web Services, Director, Global Defense Partners

Great point, and just to build upon that, fundamentally the defense industrial base partners and many aerospace partners are facing the same challenges. Integrating generative AI will enable secure, common sharing about problems that have existed. It’s able to predict and learn constantly and able to react faster.

 

The other piece is it’s not just about the supply chain component of parts. It is critical that you have the right part in the right place. And also it’s about sustainment as well in maintenance. Think about today how MRO is so siloed, which prevents a lot of speed to market. It prevents innovation faster in platforms where generative AI breaks down those silos.

Let’s even take it upstream, integrating AI and generative AI into model-based engineering and simulation. Think about the amount of time for those engineers that can be saved in terms of finding things early on in production, early on in design. So, it’s the entire ecosystem, from starting with model-based engineering down to the manufacturing floor, integrating IOT into efficiencies and manufacturing, being able to produce parts perhaps in other manufacturing across the globe that you didn’t in previous examples.

 

To do that faster, we still have a lot of legacy three tier architecture that is still being utilized. Cloud is really the enabler to help in that transformation with great partnerships. We’re seeing the landscape change where you have established partners working with startup-type of innovative, agile technology that are going to help advance that. So there’s a lot of great things generative AI can do, but we have to break down those silos and infrastructure.

AWS & Exiger: A Purpose-built Partnership

Hope King, Axios Moderator

On the point of collaborative partnerships, you are both here together because this also represents what you were just talking about, Shannon, which is that partnerships are important right now. And I think the kind of partnership that AWS and Exiger has is representative of something bigger that’s going on and what is needed right now in the defense sector.

Derek Lemke, Exiger, SVP, Supply Chain Transformation

Yeah, partnership is definitely key. I think of this theme of supply chain risk management, it really is a new term that’s come on the street within the last five years, especially post-COVID. But really what it represents is all the stakeholders across the organization, recognizing that supply chain is critical. It’s critical to the war fighter, it’s critical to revenue, it’s critical for sustainment. And partnership is key to build.

What else do you need? You need a lot of compute power. The tools that we’re building today, we work with AWS, we’ve been able to get our defense customers into the FedRAMP environment. We’re dealing with a lot of data that has to be securely transferred, and that’s enabled us to unlock really great things—not only results for our clients and our customers but being out there to secure the next win. Recently we were the highest-ranked unrestricted vendor awardee on the Supply Chain Risk Illumination Professional Tools and Services (SCRIPTS) BPA contract with the GSA. And that is something that we weren’t able to previously unlock without partners like AWS.

Shannon Judd, Amazon Web Services, Director, Global Defense Partners

Absolutely. And we’re seeing a trend. It’s not just traditional partnerships around the globe where we’re working together to serve our end customers. Prior to that, you’re seeing a fundamental shift as a partner industry working with great partners and sometimes multiple partners. Let’s make the investment upfront versus waiting for solicitations to come out. So that is a shift that AWS is making with many of our partners. Let’s go build a capability and a solution working backwards from our joint end customer’s real problems, because it’s not just about delivering compute storage infrastructure, it’s about delivering real business outcomes and solving complex global problems. It’s a great partnership that we’ve done with you to do that.

Signals Shaping the Defense Supply Chain

Hope King, Axios Moderator

It also sounds like a huge competitive edge in all aspects. I want to end the conversation with a forward-looking one. What signals are you both watching very closely? What themes and perhaps different themes than the ones that we discussed earlier?

Shannon Judd, Amazon Web Services, Director, Global Defense Partners

A big one is all around data sovereignty. As we look across our global customers, it’s essential and critical for them to have the data where they need it, be able to have an environment to collaborate and share, but also that ability to have clear emphasis on data sovereignty. So at AWS, we’ve listened very, very clearly to our customers. We recently announced that at the end of this year, we’ll have an AWS European Sovereign Cloud that will have a separate legal distinction. That is a huge first step in helping our global customers, but at the same time, being able to provide both U.S.-based and European-based defense contractors the ability to operate with their tools and resources in-country and having that ability to have sovereign data. So that is a huge thing we are watching very closely and continuing to prioritize.

The other piece is a focus on geography. As we think about assets and really leaning in on edge and tactical AI, it’s understanding that there are going to be certain systems that won’t survive in theater. As you stand back and say, “How do I approach an INDOPACOM region that’s very aquatic and very mass, how do we think about technology to deploy at the edge when we will have systems that won’t survive?” Tactical AI will be a key component of that versus other areas where it may be more terrestrial and more localized. It’s going to be a very different approach of ensuring data at the edge.

Derek Lemke, Exiger, SVP, Supply Chain Transformation

Those are really great points, data sovereignty is huge for many of our clients and customers. It’s especially on theme with what we’re hearing about what Europe is doing to secure their future for the defense space, and not just doing that in a silo, but doing it with international partners.

On the edge, we see the same things with supply chains. A supply chain that needs to support within the INDOPACOM looks extremely different than it does within Europe. Supply chain mapping and understanding where the threats exist is so important.

 

For my takeaway, I’m always hearing “supply chain is an issue, supply chain is an issue”. I don’t want to hear the word “issue” anymore because we all know it’s an issue. What are you doing about it? What action are you taking? And what I’m looking to hear and hoping to hear is how companies both big and small are starting to think of the supply chain as a competitive advantage. I think we see it now with some of the smaller players versus the mighty Goliaths and the top primes at the top—the agility vs. vertically integrated vs. outsourced. It’s an interesting power struggle that I am looking forward to seeing play out. And at the end of the day, it all comes back to how nimble is your supply chain? How flexible, how agile can you be to support the war fighter on the defense side.

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