Tech Convergence: Army Expands Transformation Evaluation Event

FORT IRWIN, Calif. – As the Army continues its efforts to drive military transformation, the service conducted its capstone event, Project Convergence-Capstone 6, as a part of its Project Convergence persistent experimentation campaign. The effort provided the military with an opportunity to demonstrate and assess emerging technologies to inform future warfighting capabilities.

Project Convergence-Capstone6, or PC-C6, conducted July 20–29 at Fort Irwin, California, brought together thousands of attendees across the joint force, allies and industry participants in what became the largest iteration of the experiment to date.

As the Army’s premier modernization event, Project Convergence serves as a culminating experimentation venue. It provides joint and multinational participants with the scope and scale needed to incorporate future technologies into a live and simulated environment and experiment with future warfighting concepts and formations to meet operational and tactical objectives.

The central focus of PC-C6 was continued validation of Next-Generation Command and Control, or Next-Gen C2, a comprehensive capability that replaces legacy, fragmented Army mission command systems with an open and extensible set of warfighting applications and artificial intelligence tools, a data integration layer and more resilient communications. The Next-Gen C2 architecture aims to provide integrated data across warfighting functions, increasing precision lethality and survivability, and achieving decision dominance against sophisticated adversaries on battlefields characterized by unrelenting speed and persistent observation.

COLLABORATIVE PARTNERS Through operational events with the 4th Infantry Division and 25th Infantry Division, hands-on collaboration with soldiers and industry partners, and independent test and evaluation activities with U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, the Army has continuously improved and scaled Next-Gen C2 from September 2025 until the present.

During the 10-day Project Convergence event, senior leaders highlighted the importance of PC-C6 in elevating Next-Gen C2 to the next level.

“A significant focus at PC-C6 was the evolution of [Next-Gen C2] capabilities,” explained Lt. Gen. Michael McCurry, commanding general for U.S. Army Futures and Concepts Command. “This experiment enabled us to conduct another repetition with [Next-Gen C2] capabilities at a much larger scale.”

McCurry shared that PC-C6 also enabled Futures and Concepts Command to deliver recommendations to the Army on which experimental technologies fill warfighting gaps and are ready to scale.

Formally activated in February 2026, Futures and Concepts Command serves as the conceptual and intellectual foundation of Army transformation, largely assuming the responsibilities of the former U.S. Army Futures Command.

As Futures and Concepts Command’s lead integrator of live operational experimentation, U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command led the planning and execution for PC-C6, ensuring the experiments were focused on demand-informed priorities and met strategic and operational objectives.

Throughout the intensive 10-day event, more than 9,700 soldiers on the ground experimented with over 90 new technologies focused on Next-Gen C2 hardware, apps and artificial intelligence, along with unmanned aerial systems, autonomous vehicles and cyber capabilities.

Expanding on previous iterations of Project Convergence that focused on validating individual technologies, PC-C6 evaluated interoperability and integration of selected technologies at the division level, as well as overall Next-Gen C2 architecture’s ability to integrate systems across vast distances and multiple domains.

CAPSTONE OBJECTIVES “What we’re really looking to validate is how effectively we can close the digital kill chain, how fast can we close it and how we can leverage AI and machine learning to be able to sense and hit time-sensitive targets as efficiently as possible,” said Brig. Gen. Daniel Hibner, commander of U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command.

Hibner stated that other objectives for PC-C6 included effectively reducing soldiers’ cognitive load at every echelon and ensuring tested applications can tap into a unified data layer, preventing a “siloed ecosystem of information.”

A key feature of PC-C6 was expansion in scope and scale of the experiment to stress-test the Next-Gen C2 architecture.

To achieve this, the Army joined with joint forces and multinational allies, adding more than 2,000 extra personnel to the experiment. Operating within Fort Irwin’s harsh desert climate, participants demonstrated the grit to endure hardship while PC-C6 incorporated live multinational maneuver for the first time.

This unique level of experimentation and integration across the U.S. Armed Forces with allies from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada demonstrated the Army’s collective commitment to interoperability and shared vision for future operations.

“Communications with allies and partners is always a challenge while executing missions, so having them here is critical,” said Command Sgt. Maj. William Justice, the senior enlisted soldier for Futures and Concepts Command.

This joint and multinational collaboration so early in the experimentation process also allows for earlier feedback, real-time fixes and critical feedback on needed capabilities to win on the future battlefield.

Col. Shaun Conlin, director of experimentation and operations, plans and training, G-3/5/7, for Futures and Concepts Command, said previous experimentations had been strictly controlled, but leaders have now added “free play” during the capstone event. The free play allows for more feedback on capabilities, such as Next-Gen C2, to determine if it can stand the stress of actual combat situations.

That stress is critical to ensure the Army can outpace adversaries and gain positional advantage in future conflicts.

MOVING FORWARD With over 600 observers and more than 100 operational assessors collecting data from the experiment, the Army can further identify opportunities for improvement so industry partners can continue working on potential solutions for future Army investment.

“This is absolutely a step forward in the maturation of this [Next-Gen C2 capability],” said Joseph Welch, portfolioacquisition executive for Command and Control andCounter-Command and Control, and executive director of U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command.

“We went from a collection of disparate programs that delivered pieces of what was needed for integrated command and control, and we are now running that as an ecosystem of capability,” Welch said.

With expanded participation across the joint force and multi-national partners, PC-C6 provided a venue to build on the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control efforts of PC-C4 and PC-C5 as participants worked to improve integration and interoperability on a greater scale.

According to the War Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control warfighting approach is a series of interconnected capabilities that enable senior military leaders to make informed decisions with greater speed and accuracy than their adversaries. Part of the Army’s potential contribution to this connectivity is establishment of the Next-Gen C2 common data layer, which has given the Army the foundation to integrate new applications as it continues to scale capability across the force, according to Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.

This common data layer not only unites information across Army warfighting functions but also allows for a more deliberate integration of Army systems with those of the broader joint force and multinational allies and partners, enhancing interoperability. PC-C6 provided the Army with a chance to put the common data layer to the test, and the results were promising.

“One specific thing that we found really worked was the common visualization—our ability to see where our soldiers were on the battlefield and where our perceived enemy was on the battlefield,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, commanding general of the 4th Infantry Division.

This made the maneuver forces faster and made it easier to determine how to sustain and enforce their formations, Ellis said.

FUTURE EXERCISES The 4th Infantry Division and 25th Infantry Division will use future Ivy Sting and Lightning Surge events to continue implementing the common data layer baseline and expand functionality for each warfighting function in Next-Gen C2.

As outlined in the U.S. National Defense Strategy, future warfare will be defined by greater speed, increased autonomy and more dispersed force postures operating in highly contested environments. Insights gained from PC-C6 will help inform strategic acquisition and force modernization efforts to ensure the Army is prepared to meet these demands of future conflict.

“What you’re seeing here is more than a successful technology demonstration. It’s an example of how the Army is changing the way we acquire and field new technology,” Ingraham said.

With its new “commercial-first” strategy for Next-Gen C2 capability acquisition, the Army can modernize at a faster rate, working with industry partners to ensure rapid integration of commercial innovations.

“The legacy procurement process would start with a requirement and then went through a yearslong process to get a prototype just to see if it’s meeting what we stipulated in our requirements. Now, the requirements process is evolving, and we’re not waiting for years for a prototype,” Hibner said.

Welch added that Next-Gen C2 development and procurement have encouraged industry “self-teaming,” providing an environment for industry partners to collaborate on potential solutions.

This new process has proved promising in both time and cost.

“We will take the lessons learned from this exercise, establish a baseline that we will roll out at echelon and continue to evolve that as we see commercial technology capabilities evolve over the coming years,” Ingraham said.

Experiments like PC-C6, where live experimentation can be conducted in combat-realistic environments, are what will enable the U.S. Army to outpace adversaries, Hibner said.

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve saw PC-C6 activities firsthand and how Next-Gen C2 performed under operational conditions at scale.

“Our next step is to examine the results of this experiment and really take a hard look at lessons learned,” said LaNeve, who also is acting Army chief of staff. Lessons learned will ensure the Army remains ready and is the foundation of the joint force, he added.

OPTIMIZE RESULTS LaNeve said Futures and Concepts Command and the rest of the PC-C6 team did a great job of digitizing the information to provide the Army with a catalog to refer to.

“Our job now is to optimize what we learned and the resources we have available to make a plan that delivers what commanders need and successfully scales across the Army,” he said.

The Army also will continue to work with industry partners as it begins scaling Next-Gen C2. There are multiple partnership opportunities for companies within and beyond current teams.

In the coming months, the Army also plans to launch a platform for industry to access the common data architecture and facilitate inclusion of more third-party applications and artificial intelligence models within Next-Gen C2.

Future experimentation efforts also are in the works.

Joint Modernization Command is collaborating on future experimentation events with the 4th Infantry Division and 25th Infantry Division as they continue their efforts with Next-Gen C2, as well as with I Corps as it begins the fielding process, aligning software and hardware deliveries to key training events, technical priorities and operational needs.

Ellis added that leaders anticipate a lot of good observations and results to come from PC-C6 that will shape how all elements of Next-Gen C2 will be represented as they move forward to future units.

PC-C6 represents more than a successful experiment of cutting-edge technology; it marks a fundamental shift in how the U.S. Army develops, acquires and executes modern command and control.

By subjecting the Next-Gen C2 architecture to the rigors of joint, multinational and division-level operations, the service has established a viable blueprint for achieving decision dominance on the future battlefield.

As Army leaders analyze lessons learned at PC-C6 to scale these capabilities across the force, the combined efforts of warfighters, allies and industry partners will ensure the joint force remains decisively ahead of potential adversaries.

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.