The DARPA Files: 100 Programs that Transformed War and Technology

The Internet. Stealth aircraft. GPS. Autonomous drones. mRNA vaccines.
What do they all have in common? They began as DARPA experiments.

Since its founding in 1958 after the Sputnik shock, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — better known as DARPA — has been the Pentagon’s secret engine of innovation. With a mission of “high risk, high reward” research, DARPA has repeatedly transformed war, technology, and everyday life.

Engines of Innovation: How DARPA and the CIA Shaped the Internet, AI, Stealth, and the Future takes readers inside 100 of DARPA’s most daring programs. From the birth of the Internet to the rise of autonomous swarms, from brain–machine interfaces to hypersonic weapons, this book reveals how a small government agency redefined the boundaries of the possible.

Along the way, it explores:

• How DARPA’s risky bets created trillion-dollar industries.

• The shadowy overlap between DARPA, the CIA, and black projects.

• The controversies of dual-use technologies that can heal or harm.

• What DARPA’s boldest current experiments mean for the future of AI, biotech, and space.

Part history, part thriller, and part warning, Engines of Innovation uncovers the untold story of the Pentagon’s most radical ideas — and the world they’ve built around us.

If you want to understand where the future comes from — and where it’s headed — you start with DARPA.