Air Force fields WarMatrix

The U.S. Air Force has put WarMatrix, an artificial-intelligence wargaming system, into operational use after its first live use on March 27. (defensenews.com) WarMatrix debuted in the GE 26 Benchmark Wargame, a two-week event hosted at Systems Planning and Analysis in Alexandria, Virginia, that ended March 27. The Air Force said more than 150 participants took part, including Pacific Air Forces leaders, the Air Force Warfare Center, allied planners and technical experts. (acc.af.mil) A wargame is a structured rehearsal for war plans, where commanders and analysts test how forces, logistics and decisions might play out before any real conflict starts. The Air Force said WarMatrix pulls together existing models, data and workflows to speed that process inside one digital environment. (acc.af.mil) The service has been chasing faster simulations because traditional defense wargaming can be slow, labor-intensive and hard to repeat at scale. A December 2025 request for information described WarMatrix as a cloud-based “digital sandbox” meant to run scenarios at up to 10,000 times faster than real time. (defensenews.com) Air Force officials are presenting the new system as decision support, not automated command. An Air Force spokesperson told Defense News that WarMatrix keeps “human on the loop adjudication,” and the official Air Force release said human judgment remains central to planning and adjudication. (defensenews.com; acc.af.mil) That distinction comes as the Pentagon pushes artificial intelligence deeper into planning, logistics and analysis while publicly drawing lines around lethal decision-making. In January, Thomas Lawhead, the Air Force assistant deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, said the service was building WarMatrix as an artificial-intelligence cloud system for wargaming. (nationaldefensemagazine.org) The GE 26 event was run by Headquarters Air Force Futures, also known as A5/7, which is responsible for long-range force design and planning inside the service. The Air Force said insights from the game will feed future conflict scenarios and force design work. (acc.af.mil) For now, the Air Force is describing WarMatrix as a faster way to test options, not a system that replaces commanders. Its first operational use gave the service a live venue to show how much planning work it can move from manual spreadsheets and separate models into one machine-assisted game. (defensenews.com; defensenews.com)