US Army's NGC2 clears key milestone in Indo-Pacific

Members of 125th Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, monitor execution checks during a live-fire exercise during Exercise Balikatan 2026 (US Indo-Pacific Command)

The US Army has cleared a significant development milestone for Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) prototype technologies in the Indo-Pacific during large-scale, multinational wargames in the region.

Units with the army's 25th Infantry Division (25ID), alongside counterparts from Lockheed Martin's development team, utilised prototype NGC2 technologies during combat scenarios as part of US Indo-Pacific Command's (INDOPACOM) annual Balikatan exercises in the Philippines.

The exercise has evolved from a predominantly US-Philippines bilateral engagement into a full‑scale multinational rehearsal for high‑intensity conflict and territorial defence involving more than 17,000 troops from Australia, Canada, France, Japan and New Zealand.

Named after the Tagalog phrase meaning ‘shoulder to shoulder', the 19-day exercise was the largest in scale and scope since the inception of the military drills in 2001.

During those wargame scenarios, 25ID, Lockheed Martin, and members of the US Army's Capability Program Executive Command and Control Information Network (CPE C2IN) “demonstrated the integration of sensors, fires systems and airspace management through a unified data platform to compress sensor-to-shooter timelines, accelerate warfighter capability and provide a real-time view of the battlefield”, via NGC2 technologies, according to Lockheed Martin.

During one specific scenario, US and Philippine armed forces were able to receive and relay operational data between the exercise location in the Philippines, as well as US armed forces' facilities in Hawaii and the continental United States (CONUS).

“This was the first NGC2 division-level demonstration of cross-domain data sharing in the 25ID operational environment, spanning multiple geographically dispersed locations,” a 12 May company statement said.