US Army commissions second cohort of tech executives into innovation unit
By Eve Sampson
Jun 12, 2026, 12:01 PM
As the U.S. Army races to modernize for warfare that is increasingly defined by autonomous systems and artificial intelligence, it is recruiting some of the country’s most influential technology leaders into uniform.
The Army this week added three more technology executives into the Executive Innovation Corps, more commonly known as Detachment 201, a newly created unit intended to bridge the gap between the commercial sector and the military.
Dane Knecht, the chief technology officer of Cloudflare; Sam Pallara, the managing director and chief technology officer of Sutter Hill Ventures; and Serkan Piantino, the co-founder of Facebook AI Research and former vice president of products at Reddit, were commissioned into the Army in a Wednesday ceremony.
The trio was commissioned by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Virginia.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/06/12/us-army-commissions-second-cohort-of-tech-executives-into-innovation-unit/
