Since COVID-19 restrictions have eliminated most international travel, readers probably didn’t pay much attention to reports last week that the rollout of 5G telecommunications systems in the United States upset airlines worried about interference with their planes’ altimeters.
Only gluttons for punishment or connoisseurs of the obscure noticed the U.S. Department of Defense announcement also last week that it was launching an optical clock network that promises significant improvement on the timing and accuracy of existing navigation devices. Both highlight the centrality of precision, timing and navigation (PNT) systems to just about every facet of life, from figuring out a lunch destination to bank transfers; as important but hopefully not as central to your daily life are their role in military systems. Missile targeting, for example, is completely reliant on them.
PNT is one of the 14 categories of emerging technologies identified by the U.S. government as strategic and therefore demanding special attention and control. The overriding factor in that categorization is use by the military: You can’t target anything or coordinate with anyone without it. To my mind, however, the real significance of PNT reflects its penetration of the digital economy; nothing is possible without it. A U.S. government report concluded that vulnerabilities in PNT systems pose “a near-existential threat.” This makes it critical to the new national security economy.