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May 28, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
Joint AI Center Turns To Air Force cloudONE As JEDI Stalls
The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center needs three things: new acquisition authorities, more staff, and the cloud. With JEDI delayed ‘potentially many more months,' director Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan said, he's turning to an Air Force alternative.
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on May 27, 2020 at 2:25 PM
WASHINGTON: The legal battle over the JEDI cloud-computing contract has slowed down the Pentagon's AI program, the director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center acknowledges. In the meantime, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan told an AFCEA webcast last week, JAIC will turn to a new Air Force program our longtime readers are already familiar with: cloudONE.
Cloud computing matters for AI because machine-learning algorithms need lots of data and lots of processing power. A shared cloud can offer both with far greater efficiencies of scale than any single organization's in-house network. JEDI was meant to provide a single “general purpose” cloud to all users across the Defense Department, including Shanahan's Joint AI Center. But it has been mired for months in legal battles over which company should have won the contract, Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.
“It slowed us down, no question about it,” Shanahan told the AFCEA audience.
“Azure, AWS, I will never get into a company discussion. I'm agnostic,” he said. “[But] if we want to make worldwide updates to all these algorithms in the space of minutes, not in the space of months running around gold disks, we've got to have an enterprise cloud solution.”
JEDI can't be that solution today, Shanahan acknowledged, but “we now have a good plan to account for the fact that it will be delayed potentially many more months.”
For instance, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread, the Joint AI Center urgently stood up what they call Project Salus – named for the Roman goddess of health and safety – to pull data from 70 different sources, find patterns, and predict trends for US Northern Command and the National Guard. Salus went from a sketch on a “bar napkin” to a functional bare-bones system (what's called a Minimum Viable Product) in 29 days, Shanahan said. With JEDI unavailable, he turned to an existing Air Force cloud run out of Hanscom Air Force Base, which he'd previously used as head of Project Maven.
But the Hanscom-based cloud is “an interim solution that will end ... here later in the fall,” Shanahan said. “Because of that, we are pivoting to the cloudONE environment.”
CloudONE & Beyond
So what's cloudONE? Like JEDI, it's a new cloud-computing capability that the Air Force hopes will be available to a wide range of users from across the Department of Defense. Unlike JEDI, it's not a joint program run by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, but a service program, run by the Air Force.
In fact, cloudOne is part of a whole package of computing initiatives – deviceONE, dataONE, et al – that the Air Force acquisition chief, Will Roper, began pushing (and branding) aggressively last year. Further, while JEDI is meant as the Defense Department's “general purpose” cloud, Roper's many ONEs are all intended to serve a single purpose, albeit a broad one: military command and control.
Together, Roper's projects will make up what the Air Force is calling its Advanced Battle Management System. ABMS, in turn, will be an Air Force component of the future Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) meta-network to share battle data between all the armed services across all five “domains” of warfare: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace.
Artificial intelligence is essential for JADC2, since human analysts can't pull together that much data from that many sources fast enough to make a difference in combat. The JAIC is far too small to build the whole JADC2 network – that's up to the far better-resourced services – but it can help.
“We're not here to build JADC2,” he said. “We're here to find AI-enabled solutions that stitch seams together from all the services, who're [each] developing some version of JADC2.”
The objective is to automate and accelerate the often-laborious process of bringing American firepower to bear. That “kill chain” includes everything from spotting a potential target with some kind of sensor, confirming what it is with other sensors, deciding to strike it, picking an aircraft, warship, or artillery battery to execute the strike, and then giving that shooter precise targeting data. Currently most of that requires human beings relaying coordinates and orders over the radio, typing them into terminals by hand, or even scrawling them on sticky notes because one network can't transfer data to another.
“Accelerated sensor-to-shooter timelines are so important – to me, this is what the next couple of years will be about, and each of the services has a really strong programs in sensor-to-shooter,” Shanahan said. “What we're trying to bring is the AI/ML solutions.”
To do that job, however, the JAIC needs more people and more legal authorities to conduct acquisitions on its own – although it will never be the size of the services' acquisition bureaucracies.
For example, while Shanahan initially focused on lower-risk, non-combat applications of AI like maintenance, on May 18 the JAIC awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a landmark contract worth up to $800 million for AI “to support warfighting operations [and] decision-making and analysis at all tiers of DoD operations.” But JAIC did so in partnership with the civilian General Services Administration (using GSA's Alliant 2 contract vehicle), just as it's done past contracts through the Defense Information Systems Agency and other established organizations, because it doesn't have the necessary authorities and personnel in-house – yet.
“I couldn't ask for better support,” Shanahan said, “but it's not going to be fast enough as we start putting more and more money into this capability development. We need our own acquisition authority.” In particular, he sees JAIC as a potential early adopter of the new streamlined process for software development and acquisition recently rolled out by the Pentagon's acquisition chief, Ellen Lord.
The JAIC also needs to get bigger. Founded in summer 2018 with just four staff, JAIC has now grown to 175 personnel (counting contractors) and must keep growing, Shanahan said. But that larger staff won't include Shanahan: JAIC's founding director retires from the Air Force next month.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/joint-ai-center-turns-to-air-force-cloudone-as-jedi-stalls/
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Nexter, EOS et TRAAK ont remporté l’appel à projet pour Larinae, un drone multi mission capable d'effectuer une mission de reconnaissance et traiter une cible. Ils ont 18 mois pour développer un démonstrateur.
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June 26, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence
Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - June 25, 2019
ARMY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Connecticut, was awarded a $91,291,064 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price) contract to provide engineering and other support services for all versions of the H-60 Blackhawk. One bid was solicited with one bid received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of June 27, 2024. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-19-D-0079). DynCorp International LLC, Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded a $12,337,211 modification (P00034) to contract W58RGZ-17-C-0011 for modification of five C-12R aircraft to a C-12V. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, with an estimated completion date of May 31, 2023. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement, Army funds in the amount of $12,337,211 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. MCR Federal LLC,* McLean, Virginia, was awarded an $8,135,050 modification (0001 20) to contract W31P4Q-16-A-0016 for technical engineering support services. Work will be performed in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of June 29, 2020. Fiscal 2019 foreign military sales admin and other procurement, Army funds in the amount of $8,135,050 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. NAVY Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia, is awarded a $62,975,474 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for engineering and technical services to meet fleet requirements for Synthetic Signature Generation based training systems. This contract will provide scientific, engineering, and technical services required for the design, development, fabrication, integration, test, fleet implementation and maintenance. Work will be performed in Bethesda, Maryland, and is expected to be complete by December 2022. Fiscal 2019 other procurement (Navy), fiscal 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy), and fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funding in the amount of $10,762,779 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with one offer received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, West Bethesda, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00167-19-D-0004). L3 Systems Co., Camden, New Jersey, is awarded an estimated $41,518,454 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price, cost-plus fixed-fee contract. The Battle Force Tactical Network program requires the procurement and integration of commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) high frequency internet protocol and subnet relay hardware, COTS software and government off-the-shelf software into a specified configuration for the Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence. This contract has a five-year ordering period up to the contract award amount. There are no options. Work will be performed in Camden, New Jersey, and work is expected to be completed by June 2024. No funding is being placed on contract and obligated at the time of award. Contract actions will be issued and funds obligated as individual delivery orders. This contract was competitively procured as a full and open competition with proposals solicited via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with three offers received. The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N00039-19-D-0035). Wyle Laboratories Inc. (aka, KBRwyle), Huntsville, Alabama, is awarded a $41,081,160 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide engineering, technical, operational, test and logistics services in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division's (NAWCAD's) Surface/Aviation Interoperability Laboratory. In addition, this contract provides for facilities testing and laboratory equipment, installed avionics and ship-combat systems maintenance. Work will be performed at NAWCAD, Patuxent River, Maryland, and is expected to be completed in July 2024. No funds will be obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposals; four offers were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-19-D-0070). Gilbane Federal, Concord, California, is awarded a $31,683,336 firm-fixed-price contract for unaccompanied enlisted housing at the Naval Base Guam. Buildings 5, 6, 18 and 20, will undergo conversion and alteration of each structure to house double-occupancy, permanent-party housing units and building common areas including multipurpose spaces, shared kitchens, vending areas, shared laundries and other miscellaneous support spaces. This project will also include the full renovation of the second floor existing double-occupancy permanent-party housing units in Building 18. The contract also contains one unexercised option, which if exercised, would increase cumulative contract value to $32,966,436. Work will be performed in Joint Region Marianas, Guam, and is expected to be completed by October 2022. Fiscal 2019 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $31,683,336 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with four proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, is the contracting activity (N62742-19-C-1310). BAE Systems Land & Armaments L.P., Louisville, Kentucky, is awarded $14,134,492 for a firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00174-19-C-0004 for one overhauled/upgraded MK45 Mod 4 gun mount, and their associated components. The 5-inch MK 45 light weight gun mount system provides an effective weapon for anti-surface, naval surface fire support, and anti-air warfare missions, and is installed aboard DDG- 51 and CG-47 class ships. This contract is to provide all necessary material and services required to overhaul and upgrade MK 45 gun mounts to support AEGIS Modernization and Arleigh Burke new construction requirements. Work will be performed in Louisville, Kentucky, and is expected to be complete by October 2023. Fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $14,134,492 will be obligated at time of award and not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division, Indian Head, Maryland, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Innovative Technologies International Inc., Lynchburg, Virginia, has been awarded a $7,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Katana Hardware Fabrication effort. The contract provides for concept design analysis and advanced fabrication capabilities to rapidly manufacture products meeting specific characteristics through a partnering arrangement by fulfilling research, development, test and evaluation requirements for Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, with organization-specific tasks. Work will be performed at Lynchburg, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by June 25, 2024. This contract is the result of a sole source award. Fiscal 2018 research and development funds in the amount of $24,897.00 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity, Eglin AFB, Florida (FA8651-19). *Small business https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1887115/source/GovDelivery/