UK Defence and Security Accelerator themed competitions

On the same subject

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  October 20, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  What TRADOC has been doing about recruiting and retention

  An update of measures Army leaders are taking to improve recruiting and retention.

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  August 1, 2018 | International, Naval

  France confirms Fincantieri-STX shipyard deal, cautious on defense merger

  ROME (Reuters) - The French government continues to support Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri's (FCT.MI) takeover of STX France, finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday, but cautioned against hastening a related defense naval merger. Speaking in Rome after a meeting with the Italian government, he told journalists France had not changed its position on the deal, quelling concerns the takeover could be hampered by tenser relations between Paris and Italy's new anti-establishment government. However, he warned against hastening a merger between Fincantieri and French military shipyards operator Naval Group which has been seen as a possible follow-up to the takeover of STX. “It would not be wise” to discuss a defense merger now, Le Maire told reporters, stressing that this was not part of the deal reached in 2017. Under the terms of that agreement between France and Italy, Fincantieri bought a 50 percent share in STX, but it took effective control of the French shipyards thanks to a 12-year loan of a 1 percent stake by the French state, which is subject to review clauses. Relations between France and Italy have soured in recent weeks over spats on migrants and after the Italian government raised doubts on the TAV French-Italian rail link project which would connect Lyon and Turin. Le Maire said after his meeting on Wednesday with Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio that Paris was still waiting for Italy's position on the project. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-stx-m-a-fincantieri-lemaire/frances-le-maire-confirms-backing-to-fincantieri-stx-shipyard-deal-idUSKBN1KM4E8

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  August 16, 2019 | International, C4ISR

  The Pentagon's Research Arm Wants AI to Help Design More Secure Tech

  The Pentagon is exploring how artificial intelligence can help build more digitally secure vehicles, weapons systems and other network-connected platforms in a fraction of the time it takes today. For years, cyber experts have urged agencies to make security a priority when building new systems, but that's easier said than done, at least when it comes to military tech, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Virtually every piece of military hardware includes a digital component and understanding how adversaries might attack these so-called “cyber physical systems” before they're constructed requires a lot of manpower and computer modeling. Because the Defense Department works under tight deadlines, officials often limit the number of designs they consider, potentially passing up more effective but out-of-the-box options, according to DARPA. But using artificial intelligence, the Pentagon could significantly accelerate the construction of cyber physical systems while also unlocking more effective—and yet unimagined—designs, the agency said. On Tuesday, the agency kicked off a research initiative that will focus on building AI-powered tools that help the Pentagon rapidly assess different blueprints for cyber physical systems. According to DARPA, the tech developed under the Symbiotic Design for Cyber Physical Systems program would “be a game changer, and may result in a new generation of unexpected, counterintuitive design solutions.” As it stands, the process for building cyber physical systems is decentralized, iterative and resource-intensive, officials said. Different teams design different parts of the system, and errors frequently arise as those components are pieced together, forcing the department to go back to the drawing board. But with “AI co-designers,” the process would change dramatically: Humans would feed both project requirements and preliminary blueprints into the tech, and the tools would propose different designs for individual components of the system. Officials would then work with the machine to narrow down possible designs, and the system would test different component combinations to find the most effective overall system. While today the Pentagon must constantly address vulnerabilities as they arise, using AI, officials would start building cyber physical systems with a blueprint that's already been thoroughly tested and optimized. “We expect order of magnitude improvement in design productivity, but equally important, the appearance of surprises, in the discovery of unconventional but highly performant designs,” officials said. DARPA plans to divide the program into three tracks, with teams working together to design the AI co-designer itself, develop a way for humans to interact with the system and build a training regimen to teach the AI to learn from the successes and failures of previous system design. The program is expected to run for about four years, and interested vendors must submit their final proposals by Oct. 14 https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/08/pentagons-research-arm-wants-ai-help-design-more-secure-tech/159210/