ULA’s Tory Bruno: US Gov’t Could Do More to Address China’s Supply Chain Infiltration Efforts

Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance and a previous Wash100 awardee, said he believes the U.S. government could take more steps to help contractors address the risk posed by China’s infiltration of the U.S. supply chain, SpaceNews reported Tuesday.

“Put a framework in place that helps us find these guys, have potentially legislation that makes it a lot harder for China to either acquire U.S. companies, invest in U.S. supply chains,” he told Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of the U.S. Space Force, during the fireside chat aired Tuesday at the Air Force Association’s Air Space Cyber Conference.

Bruno disclosed during a virtual fireside chat that a supplier of software for machine tools used to produce ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket was partially owned by a Chinese company.

He said ULA found no breach of any sensitive information since the software vendor was immediately detected.

“But I have to tell you this is just shocking in terms of the scale and ubiquity of this threat and this effort on the part of China to not only gain access to intellectual property through traditional means — hacking or espionage — but through infiltration of the supply chain,” Bruno said in response to a question by Thompson.