The Morning Download: Lockheed Martin CIO Says AI Is Remaking Her Role

Here's what's up for Jan. 16, 2026.

• AI's impact on Lockheed Martin's business
• TSMC's Big Spending Plans
• Trump Pushes BYOP ('Bring Your Own Power')

Good morning. Lockheed Martin’s Maria Demaree told me that AI is having an impact on almost every dimension of the military contractor's business, including her own role as CIO.

The mission drives the technology. Being CIO used to be about providing tools and technology to all corners of the business, hopefully making them more productive. Now it’s about working with business units, sometimes helping to define their missions, and providing the technology to support those efforts, Demaree said.

The structural changes in the business are accelerating because AI technology itself is maturing. “It’s getting to the point now where it’s actually usable and reliable,” she said. “We can put it in the hands of our employees.”

AI’s nuts and bolts impact. Lockheed Martin produces complex systems such as the F-35 fighter jet used in the deposition of Nicolás Maduro, the Thaad missile defense system, Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters and the Orion deep space craft. Many parts, such as screws and batteries, are used in more than one system, but may go by different names and numbers depending upon where they are used. That lack of standardization can create inefficiency in the massive organization, which employed about 121,000 people at the beginning of 2025 and forecasts revenue of up to $74.75 billion for that year.

Demaree says AI is maturing. “It’s getting to the point now where it’s actually usable and reliable,” she said. “We can put it in the hands of our employees.”

It can’t afford the operational slack amid competitive pressures from emerging drone manufacturers or traditional rivals such as Boeing, which last year won the contract to build the Pentagon’s next-generation jet fighter.

So Lockheed is using AI models to identify parts by analyzing attributes such as their weight, material and voltage, rather than reading labels.

The model requires human input, but once trained, the AI can categorize parts at a speed and scale that human workers could never match, Demaree said. That allows the corporation to consolidate orders to negotiate better pricing, share spare parts across divisions during shortages and accelerate projects, she said.

“As CIO, I need to lead AI adoption internally, while also ensuring we have ethical and risk management considerations addressed … not only providing the capability, but the vision for how it can be used.”

Note to readers: The Morning Download won’t be published Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will be back Tuesday with highlights from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chip maker, plans to spend a record $56 billion this year —up 27% to 37% from last year—to feed the world’s insatiable appetite for chips, WSJ reports.

“When you’ve got a business like TSMC spending at this level, investors should be prepared for sustained AI demand rather than a short-lived boom,” Zavier Wong, market analyst at eToro, tells the Journal. 

Some of TSMC's spending includes adding several new factories to its cluster in Arizona. In exchange, the U.S. is cutting tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 15%, from 20%, and exempting Taiwanese chip companies like TSMC that are investing more in America.

🎧 The WSJ’s Amrith Ramkumar talks with the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Isabelle Bousquette about the role geopolitical tensions with China are playing in the shift.

Count ASML Holding among those companies super-pumped by TSMC's spending plans. On Thursday its market value surpassed $500 billion on the news.

The Dutch chip-making equipment supplier makes the lithography machines TSMC uses to produce increasingly sophisticated chips, including those behind the AI boom. 

A "reality check" from the great data center buildout. Grid operator PJM, profiled recently in the Journal, has cut its peak demand forecast for the summer of 2027 to 160 gigawatts from 164 gigawatts. Why? For one, the previous outlook included data centers that don’t have firm service or construction commitments, Bloomberg reported.

The power-grid operator serves a 13-state region stretching from New Jersey to Kentucky and including Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley.” 

A new power plan. The Trump administration is planning to propose that PJM hold an emergency auction in which tech companies would bid to have new power plants built, WSJ reports.

A bipartisan group of governors from those 13 states, including Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, will meet Friday at the White House on the issue.

BYOP ('Bring Your Own Power'). Across the country, regulators and utility officials are debating with tech companies how much they should have to pay for the massive infrastructure investments needed to support the number of data centers seeking to connect to the grid.

“Data centers should embrace it. They will pay their fair share,” said Neil Chatterjee, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Some already are embracing it. Alphabet last month agreed to buy renewable energy developer Intersect Power for $4.75 billion, plus the assumption of debt. It was the first time a tech company brought an energy developer in-house.

Risks. The flip side is that if the AI business stalls, tech companies could be left with more than just data centers as stranded assets, WSJ's Jinjoo Lee and Dan Gallagher write. Then again, the opposite scenario—losing the AI race—is unthinkable.

AI chip bottlenecks are forcing Chinese AI developers to face a new reality. Washington’s export controls limiting China’s access to the world’s most advanced AI chips have dissuaded many Chinese companies from pursuing state-of-the-art AI, the WSJ reports.

“A massive amount of compute at OpenAI and other American companies is dedicated to next-generation research, whereas we are stretched thin,” said Justin Lin, who heads development of Alibaba’s AI model Qwen. "Just meeting delivery demands consumes most of our resources.”

Cut off from access to cutting-edge chips, many are applying the technology for everyday uses, while American companies invest in the latest chips to push the boundaries. 

Case in point: Alibaba is in the middle of rolling out a major update to its Qwen app, integrating the chatbot into its ecosystem, including e-commerce platform Taobao and online travel agency Fliggy, WSJ reported earlier. The update lets users complete tasks such as ordering food or booking flights, WSJ reported earlier.

Where were you the day the cell towers died? Verizon's hourslong service interruption Wednesday reminded WSJ Tech Columnist Joanna Stern of just how reliant we are on cellular service. The company blamed the incident on a software update.

Thinking Machines, a buzzy AI startup founded by former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, has seen several senior members depart over the last week to OpenAI, the Information reports. 

Ashley St. Clair, an influencer who had a child with Elon Musk, sued Musk’s xAI on Thursday, alleging that its Grok chatbot is “unreasonably dangerous as designed” and constitutes a public nuisance, WSJ reports.

 Diosdado Banatao pioneered roles as an engineer and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, helping to design the electrical circuitry needed to make PCs and cellphones into affordable tools and playthings, the WSJ reports. He died Dec. 25 at the age of 79.

Fifteen French mountain infantry soldiers marched onto a runway late Wednesday and boarded a bus labeled “Greenland Excursions,” their first step in a mission to deter a U.S. invasion of the Arctic island. (WSJ)

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado met Thursday with President Trump and presented him with her Nobel Peace Prize, which he accepted, a White House official said. (WSJ)

Tensions are rising between the Department of Homeland Security and one of the largest indigenous tribes in the U.S., with tribal leaders saying they think federal agents have arrested several Native American men—all U.S. citizens—amid the immigration-enforcement surge in Minneapolis. (WSJ)

Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down after 13 years as president of Lucasfilm, the Disney division that makes Star Wars films and television shows. Veteran Star Wars filmmaker and George Lucas protégé Dave Filoni has been named Lucasfilm’s president and chief creative officer. (WSJ)

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The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.