U.S. Cyber Command is planning a Cyber Command Silicon Valley presence, an outpost meant to tighten its ties with technology companies and feed a broader modernization effort inside the military’s main digital warfare organization, according to three people familiar with the planning who spoke to Recorded Future News.
The office is expected to be called Cyber Command-West, or CC-W, and officials want to stand it up as soon as possible, the people said. At first, it would share space with the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon organization set up to pull commercial technology into military use. The office would begin with a small number of personnel and grow over time, according to the people familiar with the plan.
CC-W is also expected to have its own director, though no one has been selected for that role, the people said. The office would support Cyber Command’s Cyber Warfare Innovation Center, one of three organizations created under the command’s recent CYBERCOM 2.0 restructuring.
Why is Cyber Command opening a Silicon Valley office?
The practical reason is proximity. Cyber Command wants closer contact with established software companies, newer startups and potential recruits in California, according to people familiar with the planning. Washington has plenty of defense contractors and a growing number of artificial intelligence companies, but Silicon Valley remains a dense hunting ground for commercial software, security talent and AI work.
The Cyber Warfare Innovation Center is supposed to help Cyber Command move faster from promising prototypes to tools operators can use in real missions. Defense officials often call the lag between a demonstration and a government purchase the “valley of death,” which is bureaucrat-speak for useful technology dying in procurement paperwork before it reaches the field.
Katie Sutton, the assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, described the center last month at the TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore as a testing ground where military operators and companies would work together against realistic threats and mission scenarios.
Sutton said the center would put “warfighters and industry developers into the same room” so tools could be built and revised using feedback from operators who would actually use them.
The two other pieces of the CYBERCOM 2.0 overhaul are a Cyber Talent Management Organization and an Advanced Cyber Training and Education Center. The broader restructuring began during the Biden administration and was accelerated last year by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the account given to Recorded Future News.
Who is backing the plan?
The idea for a West Coast office grew out of discussions between Cyber Command and the Pentagon, where Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg has shown strong interest in expanding U.S. cyber capabilities, people familiar with the planning said.
The Pentagon declined to comment to Recorded Future News. Cyber Command did not respond to a request for comment.
The plan does not appear to have been widely circulated across Washington. Several congressional sources told Recorded Future News they were not familiar with the proposal.
Rep. Don Bacon, the Nebraska Republican who chairs the House Armed Services cyber subcommittee, welcomed the idea. He told Recorded Future News that putting cyber forces near Silicon Valley could create “great synergy,” and pointed to artificial intelligence as one technology changing both offensive and defensive cyber operations.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Charlie “Tuna” Moore, a former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, also endorsed the concept. Moore told Recorded Future News that placing the office in the West makes sense because of the organizations and talent located there, and said Cyber Command will need a stronger private-sector partnership to expand its operational capacity and capabilities.
This story draws on original reporting from The Record.
