US Government Defense bill waters down creation of US Cyber Force, allocates billions to "rip and replace" Chinese tech
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A new digital military service looks much less likely. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has been signed into law by President Biden, outlining the military and Pentagon policies, budgets, and priorities for the coming year.
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The bill has weakened the requirement to consult a third-party to assess the feasibility of creating a US Cyber Force, as well as evaluating an ‘alternative organizational model for the cyber forces’ of the military branches. It also allocates billions to remove and replace Chinese hardware from US networks following concerns over recent security issues and possible surveillance worries.
Overall, the bill includes $895 billion in defense spending, with $3 billion of that allocated for the replacement of Chinese hardware, following recent hacking campaigns from Chinese group Salt Typhoon targeted US telecoms giants. These exposed vulnerabilities allowed the Chinese state-sponsored threat actor to lurk in the networks of the internet service provider for months, potentially still being present.
The final draft of the legislation has also scrapped any deadline and nearly all of the language included in earlier drafts, which previously introduced the idea of creating a new, separate uniformed digital service - although the Pentagon lobbied against this.
