💎 Northrop embeds diamonds in chips to cut heat

Critical Materials Group raised $10.3 million in seed funding led by Overmatch Ventures to commission modular energetics production for the US defense industrial base.

The Texas company, founded in 2025, builds automation-ready production platforms designed to run alongside existing government-owned, contractor-operated plants rather than replace them.

Energetics sit upstream of most munitions, so added capacity here is a precondition for any sustained increase in finished weapons output.

Northrop Grumman is embedding diamond directly into radio frequency chips to pull heat away faster, work backed by a $7 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Diamond moves heat five times faster than copper, letting chips run at higher power without throttling; Phase 1 testing delivered a 3.3-fold power density gain.

Northrop is targeting a threefold Phase 2 increase, which would push more transmit power into radars, communications, and satellite links without growing the hardware.

The House passed a continuing resolution Tuesday funding agencies through December 11 and extending the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 past its September 30 sunset.

That law shields companies from lawsuits and regulatory penalties when they voluntarily hand threat intelligence to agencies including the National Security Agency and CISA.

The Technology Modernization Fund and the National Cybersecurity Protection System were also extended, setting up another expiration fight for all three authorities in December.

Mykhailo Fedorov, dismissed as Ukraine's defense minister in July, is launching a defense technology company with Palantir chief executive Alex Karp as first investor.

Fedorov backed Delta, Ukraine's battlefield management system fusing drone feeds, radar, and field data, which outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll praised over US equivalents in May.

Palantir posted 93 percent revenue growth last quarter, giving Karp the capital and reach to move Ukrainian combat-tested software into allied markets.

The Army awarded Palantir and Anduril a combined $192 million in delivery orders, pushing its Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) into a production phase.

Palantir takes $127 million for the software and Anduril $65 million for ruggedized vehicle-mounted hardware, with eight more systems due over 18 months.

TITAN fuses satellite, drone, and ground sensor data into target nominations for long-range fires, with an analyst approving each package before it reaches shooters.

Dataminr's First Alert Advanced suite goes live inside NATO's Palantir-built Maven Smart System this week, deployed across the full NATO enterprise, chief executive Ted Bailey said.

The suite runs autonomous intelligence agents that scan open sources, corroborate breaking events, and issue continuously updating briefs alongside military sensor feeds.

The rollout follows a five-year, $318 million Pentagon contract covering every command and field activity, with up to three million licensed users.

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