Christopher Kirchhoff is Head of Applied AI Strategy and Global Security at Scale AI, a $29 billion AI startup founded by Alexandr Wang.
Previously, he helped found the Pentagon Silicon Valley’s office, Defense Innovation Unit, which piloted flying cars and microsatellites in military missions and created a new acquisition pathway for start-ups now responsible for $80 billion dollars of technology acquisition by the Department of Defense. Kirchhoff chronicles the story DIU in Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War, named by the Financial Times as one of six best business books of 2024.
He previously worked for Anthropic, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and served across three Presidential Administrations, where he was the National Security Council’s Director for Strategic Planning, the senior civilian aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and an advisor to the Counselor to the President in the White House Chief of Staff’s office.
A graduate of Harvard College, Kirchhoff holds a doctorate in politics from Cambridge University, where he was a Gates Scholar. He has been awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Service and the Civilian Service Medal for hazardous duty in Iraq. From 2011-2014 he was the highest ranking openly gay advisor in the U.S. Department of Defense.