Andy Lowery, Epirus | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Defense Tech

Palo Alto studio connecting Silicon Valley and Wall Street. >> I'm John Furrier, host of the Cube here with Dave Vellante, my co-host. Hello, I'm John Furrier, host of the Cube here in the Cube's NYSE studio. Of course, we have our Palo Alto studio connecting Silicon Valley to Wall Street. This is our defense tech series. Kind of a spin-off, splinter-off of our AI and robotics series, which is super popular, but as defense tech takes on a lot of that physical AI and other technology, seeing it explode into a great vertical of activity. Investors, people are building, operating new systems that are going to shape the battlefield. We have Andy Lowery here, CEO of Epirus. Andy, thank you for coming on remotely. We had some folks in person. This will be an ongoing series. Thanks for joining us. >> John, thanks for having me. Sorry Sorry I couldn't be out there today. I miss New York. It's time for me to get back out there soon. >> We'll We'll get We'll get you back. Um I'm sure we'll be having many conversations. You guys are doing some pretty cool things. Lay out what you guys do cuz you have some hard news. I want to get into it, but lay out the mission of Epirus and what what you guys are doing specifically and what is the application? >> Well, uh Epirus is a directed energy uh system company where we provide solutions for what now is being called people are starting to call critical point defense uh and also formation defense or mobile formation defense. So, um I I think to start out before I even get into the the deeper tech, there is a sort of macro issue happening where back, you know, 10 or 15 years ago when I worked at Raytheon, we called this asymmetrical warfare. Where you got a lot of consumer electronics or consumer gadgets, if you will, making their way into the into Problem with that is is that, you know, the big army, the the big navy, the big marine, as we can talk about in a second, they built air defense around sort of defending against elephants, if you will, like great big elephants, where a lot of the way they defend against elephants is geographically based upper echelon. Problem with this new type of threat is that they're like mice. They're evading all of our big systems. They're flying in under the radar, literally flying in under the radar. And so, it becomes much, much more difficult to use existing systems with existing primes in order to kind of outmaneuver uh an entirely different type of warfare. Now, where efforts comes into effect is basically we've created a a mouse trap of sorts. Uh it in a way in a way I mean is that um when you have a lot of swarms, you hear a lot about drones coming in in multiple quality, they call that swarms. When you have swarms coming in or you have dark drones coming in and they're after a particular target, we basically put directed energy or weaponized electromagnetic interference out in the atmosphere so that these new consumer electronics have a much, much more difficult time operating. And so, it isn't a one-to-one type of factor, which a lot of like pointy-ended missiles are and stuff. It's more of a one-to-many, where we can create uh I'll just say for simple purp- purposes, a force field around a small designate not a small designated target, but a localized point target as this cannot fail with. It cannot be hit. >> It's like a blanket of of coverage, if you will, for security. I was just talking with a another expert around the old days of missile construction. You got the mechanics of it, you got the electronics, you got the precision. Now, you're getting at I need to be broad-based, but I don't know what I'm going to hit. There's a lot of mice running around, as you say. So, talk about how that works. Um you got just deploy it out there? It's like a cloud of magnetic? Do you have targeted? And what changes in the mechanisms around this? What's what's the new look? >> Great question. So, the system itself resembles a radar transmitter, what they call an electronically scanned array, where you can move a beam around completely electronically. The old radars used to have a gimbal that would spin and could only point the direction of the beam where the actual antenna was facing. New radar systems, modern radar systems, they can move the beam around electronically. And so, we've leveraged that same sort of technology, but we've picked and chose microwave frequencies and microwave energies that are completely different that you would want to use in a a traditional radar, in a traditional radar sense. And what it does is it produces an electromagnetic field in the atmosphere. So, like if you were to measure two points in the atmosphere, you would measure a certain amount of voltage, and that voltage field basically gets coupled directly into the computer boards. It isn't going through an antenna. It's not a jammer. It's actually going straight in through the fabric or the the outside plastics of the system that you're out after, and then it gets right into the board, it puts voltages on the board, and the computers that run these new weapons that are being deployed at such mass just can't handle operation in such a such a high-intensity field. Like as an example, even a boat motor, like an outboard boat motor, you couldn't run it if we put this beam of energy on top of the boat motor because it has a computer inside dictating kind of the fuel injection and all of that sort of stuff. That computer ends up coupling this voltage onto it and ends up shutting it down. And so, the advantage of being able to shut down electronics in this way is that one, it doesn't really have any sort of matter if it's a fiber optic drone or a fully autonomous autonomy drone, the one that's run on total autonomy. Whether you have 10 drones, five drones, or 100 drones, you can put the energy in sort of a field. And so, uh and the last is is that it's very low collateral, meaning that it's not putting shrapnel and bullets or missiles that have a collateral effects out there. So, if you look at those three advantages and you look at how the system working, the military is working hard to kind of quickly deploy this technology along with other new technologies that do really, really well against the new threats of these mice that are evading sort of our older, sort of um more traditional systems. >> It's a really great uh engineering work. Congratulations. Really psyched to see that cuz the collateral damage is essentially just it stops working and maybe falls out of the sky. So, there's not a lot of you said bullets. And we've all seen our movies. We love our watching these movies where it's like the pulse magnetic pulse takes out something. Uh you know, when they rob the bank in Vegas, they do that pulse. They take the electricity out of Vegas and they rob, you know, the the casino. Um this is kind of like the the you know, the consumer version, but that's kind of what you're doing. You're saying, "Hey, I'm going to use the technology to take out uh threats coming in and the benefit is you got a wider swath. So, I guess my question is what kind of range we talking about? Is there um this microwave microwave does have long range, but you got to have end to end. What's that mean? Or is it How What's the some of the attributes of the of the microwave? >> Because we're pushing such high energy, you know, you can imagine we're generating electromagnetic interference to such a sort of high degree that it it almost would at some point turn on itself and kind of self-destruct. So, to to push this energy through the atmosphere, which acts as like a big resistor as that energy flows through the air, it doesn't have like a same kind of range you'd see on a radar because as you pointed out a radar is a closed loop where you're sending a little pulse out there, it's bouncing back, and you have a very very tuned-in receiver to kind of amplify that small little energy that comes back. What we're doing is a one-way type of an effector where we're pushing this energy out. And so, we like to focus the application on critical point defense, which means like a a stadium or a missile site that then would protect that a higher sort of longer geographical area or radar system or an end of a runway, so to speak, where you have almost this close-in weapon system. So, if the viewers are familiar with the Navy's close-in weapon system or the Army has a version called C-RAM, that is the sort of the bullet that these big Gatling guns that do about a kilometer or kilometer and a half. We like to say if you want to think about it from a range point of view, think about a Sea Whiz, and it's very comparable. The types of ranges This is like an electromagnetic Sea Whiz. It's your final line of defense. It's your hockey goalie, if you will, at the last bit of the net when you have leakers that get through more traditional sort of interceptors and other things like that or you have swarms, which we just don't have today very good very many ways of stopping swarms of 50 or 100 systems coming at you at one time. This system is absolutely perfectly well suited for that. >> Yeah, it's ton There's a ton of long-tail targets, too. I mean, seeing more and more of that. Talk about the news you guys put out this morning. It really does show the direction. You have a contract for high-powered microwave autonomous vehicle capability. This is a program. What's the news? Give us the details. What does it mean? And how does that roll out? >> Lead customer's been Army, and lately we've been starting to get more of a divisive side sort of way that the military branches are going after, especially one and group two and even group three drone defense. Meaning, specifically, instead of leaning completely into the Army, each of the services are beginning to do their own programs. And so, this represents the Marine Corps' desire. Because if you take a look at the system, it's very modular. It's very scalable. You can scale it up in size, down in size. You can make it mobile, or it can be fixed. So, there's a a number of ways that you can kind of tweak the core technology for a mission that's appropriate to you. Havoc contract, as they call it, Havoc, is a system that we've been working with ONR, the Office of Naval Research, and other folks in the Marine Corps on implementing as part of their layered defense for some things like expeditionary units or mobile formations, where you might have a Marine Corps kind of spoken hub out there somewhere in the field, maybe has 100 yd or 200 yd of of a footprint that it's laid down, and you're looking to give them, quite frankly, a force field. You know, you see on the news all the time in Ukraine these little group one, group two with a grenade on the bottom of it, chasing around people, and in some cases, unfortunately, uh striking an individual and blowing them up. And that's what this new warfare is kind of uh defined by, you know, is those types of really difficult uh types of things to stop. We just don't have the weapons or shooting guns at them and doing all kinds of things. And this system will provide a very sophisticated, I'd say, way of putting that final layer, that final protective cover, sort of a miniature golden dome, if you will, around let's say a Marine Corps unit. Now, the reason why it's called autonomous vehicle is the Marines are looking at almost the version of like a loyal companion, where they could put a system, a medium-size-ish system, on a autonomous vehicle, and then run that vehicle along with that Marine Corps formation, so that it could act as a kind of independent uh bodyguard, if you will, a robotic bodyguard that would go around and be controlled either autonomously or controlled by a user, uh which would be connected via communication link, and then operate the system without having to put a person in an JLTV or use up another Marine, cuz people are uh are of of very sort of um there's a there's not a lot of extra forces for extra systems, and as we're developing new systems out there, one of the things that you may not get a lot is that the services are having a tough time saying, "How do we man these systems? How do we train? How do we operate them?" But then again, when we're out in the field, we've got so many different types of defenses systems we already have to man, how do we man these systems? So, autonomy is becoming sort of the secret weapon, if you will, trying to include more and more layers and more and more defensive >> I mean, I like the layers. I mean, this is exactly the layers conversation. Also, you mentioned asymmetric warfare at the top. Um this kind of plays into that. Who wouldn't want a blanket of of comfort to know that at the tactical edge they're going to have some support. And again, it's got to be easy to manage. So, I see why the Department of War needs your technology um and and it fills a lot of gaps. Certainly, definitely last line of defense, golden dome for whatever layer you're in. But, how do you fit into the larger US defense industrial base? Could you share kind of where you go from here? >> Well, on the US side, uh you know, speaking of golden dome, coincidentally, is that, you know, they're looking at taking uh sort of protect the protector approaches, right? So, you'll have maybe ballistic missile uh system defense against ballistic missiles, defense against uh nuclear missiles and stuff. We have traditional sort of prime systems that go out and do those jobs. But, if you look at the news, if you look at what Ukraine has done to Russia's strategic bombing fleet and such, uh a lot of times these are sitting ducks. These large, complex Patriot missile systems, THAAD missile systems, they become sitting ducks. And and who's getting them is the mice. They're getting these little one and two group one and group two drones that might be in the weeds, might be 500 m out, might be a kilometer out, uh popping up out of nowhere and then coming in and uh uh taking out these much more expensive systems. So, when you look at one of the approaches that the US military's taking, they're looking at defending sort of these very high-value, need to protect sites. There's zero uh sort of tolerance for any failure. We can't allow these sites that we'll set up around the United States to provide us this big golden dome uh to be attacked. Or, let's say in Guam, for example, you can imagine a container ship off the coast of Guam could let loose the whole swarm of different types of uh small targets that could come in and damage systems that sit at Guam at the very western point of where we have eyes and a bunch of capabilities. So, if you think about this, we become the layered approach on an inside layer, sort of a final layer that would protect the protectors. The protectors would provide the layers at a higher echelon, larger geographical type of a footprint, and we're providing those critical point defensive layers that protect those protectors. >> Love the protective protectors. You got the ROI, and that's pretty straightforward. You don't need to sell that case. You got a lot of cap ex spend on the big guns, so to speak. Got to have protection. What's What's the process now? Take us through what has to change for the Pentagon to make their business more successful? How do they prepare on their end? Is it a bureaucracy problem? Is it a system design problem? Is it just the strategists and the and the folks who actually do this for a living can't get the the requirements in? Is it too political? What's the What has to change in in the Pentagon to make this go forward faster? >> Yeah, well, we see a lot of the changes starting, and it is a bit of sort of a get the changes through and implemented. And as people are changing, you tend to take sometimes two steps back before you take three or four steps forward. But what you see happening these days is a much more commercial approach, product approach to kind of expanding the military industrial base. If you look at traditional primes, like ones that I very proudly served for, Raytheon was a big part of my career. Uh they're a services company. They act in conjunction with the military to kind of take requirements, fulfill those requirements, build these big systems, maintain, train them. Uh very well suited to do that. But however, if you fast forward to the mice battle, as we keep referring it to it as, uh what you're having is a very, very fast-paced technology churn. So, if you look at Ukraine and look at the Middle East, you see basically something work one day, not work the next day, and then an adaptation happen on the third day. At this sort of weekly, daily, even maybe at most monthly type of of a run rate. So, in order to keep up with that, it isn't sufficient enough to kind of run the old FAR process, the Federal Acquisitions Regulations process, tell the Raytheon what requirements you need to do what in this sort of a thing. What needs to happen is a put the gas pedal down and how you see the fastest innovation happening is kind of out of the Silicon Valley product companies that were chasing the next consumer type invention or whatnot. So, what you need is a military uh war Department of War. What you need is a Department of War that can do both. You can do both the old traditional type of military procurement, but then have a new sort of motion that can get after these new product companies that are inventing ahead of the need. You know, they We've seen it in SOCOM a little bit. We've seen it in CIA and other types of three-letter agencies where have providers build something that they know that they're going to need, bring it to the customer, and say, "All right, help me buy help yourself by buying some of these things." Same thing is happening, but that's happening at a much larger scale than just special operations and some of the other niche military outfit. >> You know, Andy, that's a great point. I mean, even on the cloud side, you see all these new AI factories, Nvidia's enabling all these they call neo clouds. They're operating at that word you just mentioned, scale, right? So, scale becomes an issue. In those traditional markets and technology, the general system in the global system integrators, they're declining. Their service business is declining, and they're starting to have to become engineering companies. The The ones that are successful are actually forward deploying their engineering and product teams. They're much faster and more agile. That's what you're saying here, that the primes, if you will, the Raytheons, the big players, the way they did business a little bit antiquated for the speed and the velocity game of product innovation, electronics, and whatnot. >> Yeah, it still serves a purpose. I I won't say that there isn't still need for, you know, Bradley tanks and a need for Patriot missile systems. I mean, the big threats are still out there. You know, the big wars could still be in our future. We don't know. But if you look at today, how many injuries and and and fatalities are happening in Ukraine and where they're all coming from, they're not coming from the traditional warfare artillery. They're coming from drones. >> Yeah. >> I mean, quite frankly, 80 to 85% of all injuries and fatalities in Ukraine are being done by drones. >> Yeah, these mice. They're mice. It's a thousand paper cuts. You know, it's it's like just chipping away, low-cost gear, highly targeted, under the radar, so to speak. Just annoyances, but it adds up in the aggregate. >> It absolutely does. It's a death by a thousand cuts. It's a great way of putting it. And that's what's uh dominating the way warfare is being fought today, so. >> Well, you know, conflict has been with mankind since the and discovery of land. Now we got space, so you're going to see more and more conflicts and the the safer that can be done managing that conflict, the better. Andy, I really appreciate taking the time, coming in, sharing your perspective, and give us an update on on some of the momentum. Really appreciate it. Uh final question, put a plug in for what you guys are working on. I see you got a product roadmap, you're coming out with more stuff, looking to hire. What kind of people are you looking for? What are some of the moments? Put a plug in for the company. >> Yeah, it's an exciting time to be part of Epirus. Uh what we've done recently is we've been pivoting into a solutions-based company, a company that doesn't only provide a nice force field type of effecter, but we have uh radar, uh exquisite ability to do AI sensing with electro-optical infrared. We have um modeling and simulation that we've been bringing to the customer in order to help with sort of planning out how you set up and how you defend against this new type of warfare. Um and basically the field support, I should say, and training and operation of our systems as they're being forward deployed. All of that is needed is basically uh different types of product lines to kind of fulfill the mission. Um they're heavy-duty electronic warfare and look in the not-too-distant future to see new ways of doing more advanced electronic warfare beyond just high-powered microwave coming out of Epirus. Um but as far as our mission goes, we define ourselves as being critical point defense, formation defense, that final layer, leveraging electronic warfare in some more sophisticated ways of getting at this threat. >> Annie, thank you so much. Again, layered approach, protect the protector, uh electronic innovation. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm John Furrier with the Cube. We are here with our Defense Tech Series here at our NWS and Super Power of NOC Wired program and community where technology and capital markets intersect. Defense Tech is using all the deep tech, applying it to the battlefield. Of course, a lot of spillover to the commercial world as well as robotics and AI continue to be part of it. Having the intelligence, the layered approach will make things better. We're doing our part here with the Cube to share that with you. Thanks for watching.