At a New Mexico military test range on Tuesday, War Secretary Pete Hegseth watched demonstrations of weapons that use lasers and powerful bursts of electromagnetic energy to disable or destroy targets, highlighting the Pentagon's growing effort to develop new ways to defend against missiles and aerial threats.

The event appears to be the first publicly known instance of a Pentagon chief personally watching such weapons being fired, Laser Wars reported.

The demonstration was conducted at White Sands Missile Range and attended by Hegseth and Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael.

The demonstration included several Army and industry-developed systems, including high-energy lasers, a 300-kilowatt laser weapon known as Valkyrie, a high-power microwave weapon, and a Coyote interceptor designed to defeat drones.

Michael said the Pentagon is accelerating investment in the technology.

"We have dramatically increased investment in scaling directed-energy technologies, signaling to our manufacturing partners that the War Department is focused on delivering rapid solutions to the warfighter," Michael said in a statement.

"We are directly tackling manufacturability, reliability and integration, areas that have challenged transition under previous administrations."

A senior Pentagon official told Laser Wars that Michael's office is taking "a more active role moving directed energy forward" through the Joint Laser Weapon System initiative, which supports the Trump administration's proposed Golden Dome missile defense architecture.

The official said the White Sands event "affirmed the ability of directed-energy systems, particularly high-energy lasers, to defeat high-density, highly proliferated threats from a variety of sources and power levels."

"Scaling directed energy enables our warfighters to fight beyond the limits of magazine capacity and no longer limited by how many bullets are in the chamber," the official added.

The demonstration comes as the Pentagon seeks lower-cost alternatives to missiles for countering increasingly common drone threats.

The War Department has proposed roughly $2 billion for directed-energy research and development in its fiscal 2027 budget request, including $452 million tied to Golden Dome efforts.

Hegseth has also signaled plans to rapidly expand procurement.

In a written statement submitted to the House Armed Services Committee in April, he said the Pentagon intends to purchase "tens to hundreds" of directed-energy weapons in the coming years to create a "strong and consistent demand signal" for industry.

The White Sands event featured systems competing for the Army's Enduring High Energy Laser program.