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By: Mike Gruss   The long-held thinking in Washington is that if the Department of Defense wants to stay ahead of its adversaries, it will need improved capabilities, many of which are being developed outside of the Beltway. To that end, Pentagon leaders launched the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, commonly referred to in defense circles as DIUx, as a way to attract new companies into the fold and accelerate the pace of acquisition. In fall 2017, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis visited the organization's headquarters and said its influence would grow. A few months later, DIUx's director, Raj Shah, left the organization for the private sector. Capt. Sean Heritage has served as the acting managing partner since then. Heritage spoke recently with C4ISRNET's Mike Gruss. C4ISRNET: What's the status of the DIUx reboot? CAPT. SEAN HERITAGE: The last two years have been largely focused on fielding capability across the department. We like to say we can solve problems faster, better, cheaper using commercial technologies with nontraditional companies that are out there. We've learned that we have some amazing talents on our team and rather than just defaulting to fielding capability, we are creating tailored solutions using organic expertise. We've been able to do this primarily in a suborganization we refer to as the Rogue Squadron — it works in the UAF, counter-unmanned aerial system world. We're sharing our lessons learned across the department. We're coaching people on how we do things so that they can emulate us. So, we'd like to think that if we are the only ones doing CSOs [commercial solutions openings] and OTAs [other transaction authorities], in our image a year or two from now, then we failed. C4ISRNET: How do you know this is working? HERITAGE: We know all our prototypes aren't going to transfer to production. Our target goal is between 40 to 60 percent success rate. The feeling is that if we are more successful than that, then we probably aren't being innovative or creative enough and assuming enough risk on behalf of the department. With regard to our creating line of effort, we're very proud of the [Air Operations Center] Pathfinder project. Kessel Run was a great example of fielding capability and then leveraging organic talent to create tailored solutions and transition to a program of record. Then the coaching effort, we're defining success by creating somebody in other organizations in our image every six months. C4ISRNET: On talent development, is part of that asking leaders to rethink how they're using their people or is it something else? HERITAGE: The best example would go back to Kessel Run. That really started with the Defense Innovation Board. We were able to help the Air Force explore the art of the possible, which made a compelling case for the DIB's original recommendation: you guys need software developers as a core skill at the unit level to solve these problems in real time. They like to use the example that Home Depot has 6,000 software developers to sell you hammers. You can say the same for any service. How many software developers do you have? Well, the answer is we don't know, because we don't have a specialty for software developers, but no doubt once you know people across your team, there are many very capable people who do software development on the side. How do you leverage that? How do you more deliberately recruit to that? And how do you develop them? C4ISRNET: What's one area where you guys have been able to say, “Without us, we're not sure this would've happened as fast?” HERITAGE: We are very proud of the work we are doing in the artificial intelligence world. So, we are doing some projects on predictive maintenance. Again, for the Air Force, focusing on the [E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system] out of the gate. But it's scaling across other platforms. We're already able to deliver value by solving that problem, reducing unplanned maintenance. Another contract was let out that's scaling to the Army with their Bradley Fighting Vehicles. We are going to be doing predictive maintenance with them. Something that may be lost on many people is our involvement in the formulation of the JAIC, the Joint AI Center. That would not have happened without us, but, more specifically, that would not have happened if we weren't here in the Valley and had access to create relationships with some significant talent in the civilian world. C4ISRNET: I wanted to reframe what you were saying. If DIUx wasn't in existence, do you think that there wouldn't be the same level of talent? HERITAGE: The talent we are able to attract to our team, to work through any problems and inform strategic thinking, wouldn't have happened. What we have is very open-minded senior leaders who are yearning for diverse thinking. And, as a career military guy, it's not all that diverse. What we're able to do is reach into a talent pool that has lots of credibility and expertise that isn't resident in the department. C4ISRNET: What's something DIUx is doing now, that it wouldn't have done three years ago? HERITAGE: The biggest difference is the deliberate embracing of our role in creating solutions and scaling ... coaching. Those were things that DIUx didn't do in the past. We have much more support from across the department. We no longer need that direct cover of the Dep. Sec. Def as a direct report. The percentage of our team that is military is higher than at the beginning. That's not necessarily by design. We are attempting to recruit more individuals, commercial executives, to help coach us. We don't want to be a military organization that happens to be in Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin. We want to truly be representatives of the culture. C4ISRNET: You talked about that 40 to 60 percent goal. What are the other ways you measure success? HERITAGE: The first one is the number of customers within the department that are coming our way to ask us to help them solve problems using our relationships, authorities and methodologies. That's one metric and that number continues to go up. The other is the number of nontraditional companies who want to help solve problems. A commercial solutions opening is a honey-pot for all these creative companies to say, ‘Can I contribute?' The number of companies continues to go up. It was 40-plus on the last CSO. The record to date is over 70. Now we're in a position where we have to say no to projects. We're a little more selective. C4ISRNET: What is DIUx's role with AI? HERITAGE: A lot of folks claim to be able to contribute to the AI mission area. There are 593 initiatives across the department that claim to be AI. It's our ability and our connections with Project Maven that have afforded us the opportunity to influence the way ahead for the department and facilitate some conversions. Some of the work that we're able to do with these nontraditional companies is not only shaping understanding of the power of AI across the department, but it's focusing everybody as well. We're able to help make them a bigger part of the conversation or maybe inspire them to a bigger part of the conversation. C4ISRNET: How do you convince a company that working with the Pentagon is the right path, and it's not a quagmire like it has been at Google? HERITAGE: We don't spend time trying to convince companies to do or think anything. There are plenty of folks out here and elsewhere, who are passionate about contributing to the cause, and appreciate what they are learning just through having access to the data that we're able to provide them. But it's a challenging conversation to be a part of because we don't want to turn people off. We're here to provide people with opportunity. C4ISRNET: Where can you help the most in IT? HERITAGE: [Information technology] is an example of how a DoD organization can leverage technology and access to a network that is still secure, yet different than what the rest of the department is using. It's things that you probably take for granted. We have people come to our team for a short period of time, after a career within the department going, “Wow, look at how my productivity has changed since I've been here.” I have access to Slack and the G Suite and a whole host of other tools that are not allowed, and for good reason, on DoD networks. C4ISRNET: One concern is whether new vendors can provide overmatch. Is that the case? HERITAGE: We look at the companies to make sure they're going to be around long enough to provide this capability. When we talk about our responsibility to help navigate the “Valley of Death,” and make sure that these prototypes don't just die, these companies have to have legs underneath them and investors behind them to be viable down the road so that we don't spend our time developing a prototype that they won't be around to deliver. https://www.c4isrnet.com/thought-leadership/2018/07/27/rebuilding-it-better-stronger-faster/

By: Kelsey Atherton Bob Work, in his last months as deputy secretary of defense, wanted everything in place so that the Pentagon could share in the sweeping advances in data processing already enjoyed by the thriving tech sector. A memo dated April 26, 2017, established an “Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team,” a.k.a. “Project Maven.” Within a year, the details of Google's role in that program, disseminated internally among its employees and then shared with the public, would call into question the specific rationale of the task and the greater question of how the tech community should go about building algorithms for war, if at all. Project Maven, as envisioned, was about building a tool that could process drone footage quickly and in a useful way. Work specifically tied this task to the Defeat-ISIS campaign. Drones are intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms first and foremost. The unblinking eyes of Reapers, Global Hawks and Gray Eagles record hours and hours of footage every mission, imagery that takes a long time for human analysts to scan for salient details. While human analysts process footage, the ground situation is likely changing, so even the most labor-intensive approach to analyzing drone video delivers delayed results. In July 2017, Marine Corps Col. Drew Cukor, the chief of the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Function Team, presented on artificial intelligence and Project Maven at a defense conference. Cukor noted, “AI will not be selecting a target [in combat] ... any time soon. What AI will do is complement the human operator.” As Cukor outlined, the algorithm would allow human analysts to process two or three times as much data within the same timeframe. To get there, though, the algorithm to detect weapons and other objects has to be built and trained. This training is at the heart of neural networks and deep learning, where the computer program can see an unfamiliar object and classify it based on its resemblance to other, more familiar objects. Cukor said that before deploying to battle “you've got to have your data ready and you've got to prepare and you need the computational infrastructure for training.” At the time, the contractor who would develop the training and image-processing algorithms for Project Maven was unknown, though Cukor did specifically remark on how impressive Google was as an AI company. Google's role in developing Maven would not come to light until March 2018, when Gizmodo reported that Google is helping the Pentagon build AI for drones. Google's role in the project was discussed internally in the company, and elements of that discussion were shared with reporters. “Some Google employees were outraged that the company would offer resources to the military for surveillance technology involved in drone operations,” wrote Kate Conger and Dell Cameron, “while others argued that the project raised important ethical questions about the development and use of machine learning.” A petition by the Tech Workers Coalition that circulated in mid-April called upon not just Google to pull out of Pentagon contracts, but for Amazon, Microsoft and IBM to refuse to pick up the work of Project Maven. (The petition attracted 300 signatures at the time of this story.) Silicon Valley's discord over the project surprised many in positions of leadership within the Pentagon. During the 17th annual C4ISRNET Conference, Justin Poole, the deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, was asked how the intelligence community can respond to skepticism in the tech world. Poole's answer was to highlight the role of intelligence services in reducing risk to war fighters. Disagreement between some of the people working for Google and the desire of the company's leadership to continue pursuing Pentagon contracts exacerbated tension in the company throughout spring. By May, nearly a dozen Google employees had resigned from the company over its involvement with Maven, and an internal petition asking the company to cancel the contract and avoid future military projects garnered thousands of employee signatures. To calm tensions, Google would need to find a way to reconcile the values of its employees with the desire of its leadership to develop further AI projects for a growing range of clients. That list of clients, of course, includes the federal government and the Department of Defense. While efforts to convince the tech community at large to refuse Pentagon work have stalled, the pressure within Google resulted in multiple tangible changes. First, Google leadership announced the company's plan to not renew the Project Maven contract when it expired in 2019. Then, the company's leaders released principles for AI, saying it would not develop intelligence for weapons or surveillance applications. After outlining how Google intends to build AI in the future, with efforts to mitigate bias, aid safety and be accountable, Google CEO Sundar Pichai set out categories of AI work that the company will not pursue. This means refusing to design or deploy “technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm,” including an explicit prohibition on weapons principally designed to harm people, as well as surveillance tech that violates international norms. Taken together, these principles amount to a hard-no only on developing AI specifically intended for weapons. The rest are softer no's, objections that can change with interpretations of international law, norms, and even in how a problem set is described. After all, when Poole was asked how to sell collaboration with the intelligence community to technology companies, he framed the task as one about saving the lives of war fighters. The “how” of that lifesaving is ambiguous: It could equally mean better and faster intelligence analysis that gives a unit on patrol the information it needs to avoid an ambush, or it could be the advance info that facilitates an attack on an adversary's encampment when the guard shift is particularly understaffed. Image processing with AI is so ambiguous a technology, so inherently open to dual-use, that the former almost certainly isn't a violation of Google's second objection to AI use, but the latter example absolutely would be. In other words, the long-term surveillance that goes into targeted killing operations above Afghanistan and elsewhere is likely out of bounds. However, the same technology used over Iraq for the fight against ISIS might be permissible. And software built to process drone footage in the latter context would be identical to the software built to process images for the former. The lines between what this does and doesn't prevent becomes even murkier when one takes into account that Google built its software for Project Maven on top of TensorFlow, an open-source software library. This makes it much harder to build in proprietary constraints on the code, and it means that once the Pentagon has a trainable algorithm on hand, it can continue to develop and refine its object-recognition AI as it chooses. But the window for Google to be involved in such a project, whether to the joy or dismay of its employees and executive leadership, is likely closing. In late June, the Pentagon announced creation of a Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, which among other functions would take over Project Maven from the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team. The defense sector is vast, and with Google proving to be a complicated contractor for the Pentagon, new leadership may simply take its AI contracts worth million elsewhere with to see if it can get the programming it needs. And Maven itself still receives accolades within the Pentagon. Gen. Mike Holmes, commander of Air Combat Command, praised Project Maven at a June 28 defense writers group breakfast, saying that the use of learning machines and algorithms will speed up the process by which humans process information and pass on useful insights to decisions makers. Inasmuch as the Pentagon has a consensus view of explaining tools like Maven, it is about focusing on the role of the human in the process. The software will do the first pass through the imagery collected, and then as designed highlight other details for a human to review and act upon. Holmes was adamant that fears of malicious AIs hunting humans, like Skynet from the “Terminator” movies, are beyond premature. “We're going to have to work through as Americans our comfort level on how technologies are used and how they're applied,” said Holmes. “I'd make the case that our job is to compete with these world-class peer competitors that we have, and by competing and by setting this competition on terms that we can compete without going to conflict, it's better for everybody.” AI of the tiger Project Maven, from the start, is a program specifically sold and built for the work of fighting a violent nonstate actor, identifying the weapons and tools of an insurgency that sometimes holds swaths of territory. “Our responsibility is to help people understand what the intent is with the capability that we are helping to develop. ... Maven is focused on minimizing collateral damage on the battlefield. There's goodness in that,” said Capt. Sean Heritage, acting managing partner of Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx). “There's always risk in how it will be used down the road, and I guess that's where a small pocket of people at Google's heads were. But, as Mr. Work pointed out during his panel at Defense One, they don't seem to have as challenging of a time contributing to AI capability development in China.” Google's fight over Project Maven is partly about the present — the state of AI, the role of the United States in pursuing insurgencies abroad. It is also a fight about how the next AI will be built, and who that AI will be built to be used against. And the Pentagon seems to understand this, too. In the same meeting where Holmes advocated for Maven as a useful tool for now, he argued that it was important for the United States to develop and field tools that can match peer or near-peer rivals in a major conflict. That's a far cry from selling the tool to Silicon Valley as one of immediate concern, to protect the people fighting America's wars presently through providing superior real-time information. “The idea of a technology being built and then used for war, even if that wasn't the original intent,” says author Malka Older, “is what science fiction writers call a ‘classic trope.' ” Older's novels, set two or three generations in the near-future, focus on the ways in which people, governments and corporations handle massive flows of data, and provide one possible vision of a future where the same kinds and volumes of data are collected, but where that data is also held by a government entity and shared transparently. While radical transparency in data is alien to much of the defense establishment, it's an essential part of the open-source technology community for security concerns both genuine and sometimes not-so genuine. Building open source means publishing code and letting outsiders find flaws and vulnerabilities in the algorithm, without looking at any of the sensitive data the algorithm is built to process. And Project Maven is built on top of open-source framework. “One of the dangerous concepts that we have of technology is that progress only goes in one direction,” says Older. “There's constantly choices being made of where technology goes and where concepts go and what we are trying to do.” While it's entirely possible that the Pentagon will be able to continue the work of Project Maven and other AI programs with new contractors, if it wanted to reach out to those skeptical of how the algorithm would interpret images, it could try justifying the mission not just with national security concerns, but with transparency. “Part of being an American is that Americans have expectations about what their government does and whether the government uses tech and tools to infringe upon their rights or not,” said Holmes. “And, so, we have really high standards as a nation that the things that we bring forward as military tools have to live up to.” To work with the coders of the future, it may not be enough to say that the code — open source or not — is going to be used in ways consistent with their values. The Pentagon may have to find ways to transparently prove it. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/07/27/targeting-the-future-of-the-dods-controversial-project-maven-initiative/

By: Shawn Snow In the latest version of the annual defense legislation Congress has gutted nearly $14 million for the Corps' futuristic expeditionary sea drone known as the MUX. The original funding request was $25,291,000, but the approved funds are only $11,291,000, that's more than a 50 percent slash. But the steep cuts pale in comparison to the $100 million Senators originally approved in their mark-up of the Senate version of the annual defense authorization bill in late June. House members argued in a report there were a number of capabilities and platforms across the services that could “likely mitigate” the Corps' identified shortfalls. “The committee believes the Marine Corps underestimates the required communications, data link, launch, mission execution and recovery infrastructure, or the human capital resources required to train, operate, maintain and sustain such a system,” the House Armed Services Committee, or HASC, said in a report that followed their version of the defense bill in May. “The Marine Corps also underestimates the necessary human capital resources required to meet current deployment-to-dwell policy and guidance issued by the Secretary of Defense," the report added. The HASC also called for a report from chairman of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council by February 2019 on how existing capabilities across the services can plug the Corps' perceived gaps. “The committee also directs the Secretary of the Navy to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services, not later than February 5, 2019, that explains the acquisition and funding strategy of the Marine Corps to affordably develop and field an unmanned capability of this nature, and then personnel, funding, infrastructure, and mission-execution resources that would be needed to viably sustain and support this capability, the report reads. The Corps is amid plans to develop a futuristic group five drone capable of landing on amphibious ships at sea. The Corps wants its high-tech platform to conduct electronic and kinetic strikes and come with an early airborne warning capability. The airborne warning feature will afford Marine Expeditionary units the ability to operate independent of aircraft carriers. Carriers deploy the E2D Hawkeye for early airborne warning. The MUX will also have long-range networking capabilities allowing the drone to patch into and cue weapon systems from other ships and aircraft. The Corps held a conference with industry leaders in early June to hash out its wish list for the MUX. Currently, the Marines do not operate a large group five drone. To make up for the lack of experience, the Corps has been sending Marines to work with the Air Force. Marines do operate smaller tactical surveilance drones like the RQ-21 Blackjack. The House passed the latest version of the defense bill on Thursday. The Senate is expected to vote on it early next week. Inside Defense first reported the potential cuts to the MUX. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/07/27/congress-looks-to-slash-funding-for-the-corps-futuristic-sea-drone/

By: Todd South ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — As soldiers at every level become more connected and devices proliferate, the strain on the field-level power grid increases. Staff at the Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command dove into the finer details of power management, auto tuning and analytics to drive how soldiers use power in the field. Most of that work is focused around the tactical microgrid, basically the network of power that runs tactical operations. Think thick cables, generators and all the power that lets the computers, radios and networks run to digest the vast amounts of information, communication and other electrical needs consumed by a modern military. In the not-too-distant past, generator operators and technicians played a sophisticated guessing game that involved a clock, multimeter, flashlight and notepad to measure and mark which power supplies were running, at what level, and where they were on fuel. But by adding digital capabilities and software-driven devices into the guts of what were simple analog generators and boxes full of copper wiring and switches, they have created a type of brain for what was formerly a mindless system. That's resulted in the new Advanced Medium Mobile Power Source, the first new generator for the service in years. The combination of that device, controllers within the system, and advanced software gives the soldier a centralized place to monitor and manipulate the different devices in the microgrid that will help the flow of power move to where its needed. “I can tell you if you're using too many lights or computers on one of those three phase lines and if you're out of balance,” said Bradley Stanley, an RDECOM computer scientist. By using software to make those readings, the end user can then shift the strain to other parts of the system, maximizing power output and fuel use for what can be 24-hour, days long operations. Another software improvement in “autotuning” is helping make what can be a multi-person with expert training four-hour job into an automated procedure handled by the computer. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/07/26/how-army-researchers-are-using-software-and-analytics-to-maximize-battlefield-power

By: Todd South ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — As the Army improves its mission command posts, one of the key areas where it has made changes is how soldiers can operate computers for everything from sharing information to tracking friendly and not-so-friendly forces. Staff at the Army's Research Development Engineering Command have upgraded items from tablet-style computers, display systems and ways to use voice commands rather than keyboards for controlling devices. During a recent display at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, soldiers who work as trainer/observers at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, gave demonstrations of the new capabilities for the Tactical Computing Environment. Sgts. 1st Class Sheena Ferrell and Ramon Contreras Jr. showed how soldiers using the new devices can share “one common operating picture” with each other. Users can track individual vehicles on the wide-ranging training area, mark obstacles, terrain features, enemy positions and other items with preprogrammed symbols and use a chat feature to send messages or attachments to other soldiers. Alongside those efforts is another piece of software that gives soldiers a Siri or Alexa-type voice command capability, but contained to the device, rather than relying on the computing cloud or an Internet connection. The program, Single Multimodal Android Service for Human Computer Interaction, or SMASH, has been a part of the larger effort to improve Expeditionary Mission Command across the Army. Users can simply speak commands such as “Show Blue Force layers,” or “big picture,” to have icons or elements appear or disappear on the digital map. Another quick-use feature is to mark specific incidents for later use in after action reports. The demonstrator gave the example of selecting a shorthand for marking a spot for a roadside bomb, speaking the words “French fries,” and the device immediately marked and alerted the map, which would also be relayed to those sharing the same features. Some lower tech but important additions are portable, roll-up displays, and software called Display Viewer Application that replaces a massive hardware device used to share computer screen displays across a closed, Local Area Network within the command post. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/07/26/want-siri-or-alexa-ready-for-tactical-ops-this-army-command-is-working-on-it

Amanda Macias The Pentagon released its final request for proposal for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract. The lucrative winner-take-all deal may be valued at as much as $10 billion. Amazon is considered the front-runner for the contract since the tech giant already services the cloud system used by U.S. intelligence agencies. The Defense Department took a large step forward Thursday in its march toward procuring a secure cloud software, an acquisition potentially worth up to $10 billion. After a nearly two-month delay, the Pentagon released its final request for proposal for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract. The long-awaited final request for proposal simply outlines what companies will have to deliver in order to get the lucrative deal. The Pentagon's cloud project will transition massive amounts of data to a commercially operated secure cloud system. The deal is a "single-source" award, meaning that only one company will win the entirety of the contract. Amazon is considered the front-runner for the contract since the tech giant already services the cloud system used by U.S. intelligence agencies. Amazon's cloud boasts the highest possible security level, while many of its competitors' clouds do not. However, other cloud providers — such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle — have worked with government agencies for many decades. That could help their chances of winning the decade-long JEDI contract. The DoD "has an incredibly unique and complex technology estate and finite set of talent and resources," Pentagon Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy said in a statement. "We need help learning how to put in place an enterprise cloud and the JEDI Cloud is a pathfinder effort that will help Department of Defense do that." Experts think the deal could be a seismic development in the defense-tech world. "This award could be market-shaping," Andrew Hunter, director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview. "I think industry's concern is that this will be the premier cloud contract, the flagship one, and that other parts of DoD will gravitate to it," he added. "So, I think whoever wins the contract is likely to have a real advantage in the marketplace going forward but not necessarily a decisive one." The desire to award a multibillion-dollar, two-year cloud contract was largely set into motion after Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited Silicon Valley last year. Federal defense agencies widely use Microsoft's server software, which integrates easily with the company's Azure public cloud, and among employees, Windows is the most popular operating system, Leigh Madden, Microsoft's general manager of defense, told CNBC in a prior interview. "I think it certainly should make a difference," he said. Similarly, IBM has worked alongside the military for decades. "We look forward to submitting a thoughtful, comprehensive proposal for a JEDI cloud that will serve the long-term needs of America's men and women in uniform," Sam Gordy, IBM's Federal general manager, said in a statement. In the midst of all this, President Donald Trump has attacked Amazon on Twitter, particularly as he rails against The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, for the newspaper's coverage of his administration. A Vanity Fair report said the Trump administration might try to "cancel Amazon's pending contract" with the Pentagon, but the department maintains that there has been no political pressure from the White House on who should win the multibillion-dollar deal. U.S. Navy Commander Patrick Evans, a Department of Defense spokesperson, reiterated that the Pentagon's process is "transparent" and will remain "a full and open competition." "No companies were pre-selected. We have no favorites, and we want the best solution for the department," Evans said. Similarly, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White also addressed speculation Thursday that Amazon was in the lead to take the lucrative defense contract. "The secretary has been very clear that we need to be good stewards of the American people's money," White said. "So, nothing is taken for granted and nothing is presumed. We will get a full, open and transparent competition, and this is the first of many competitions with respect to the cloud." The Pentagon is scheduled to award the contract in September. — CNBC's Jordan Novet contributed to this report. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/pentagon-takes-step-closer-to-awarding-10-billion-cloud-contract.html

By: Andrew C. Jarocki   The communication system which keeps the president in touch with the nuclear triad during a crisis will now be the responsibility of the head of U.S. Strategic Command. The change came about from concerns that the nuclear command, control and communications systems, or NC3, lacked a clear chain of command under the current structure. The system is comprised of satellites, radars and fixed or mobile command posts. “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has appointed the commander of U.S. Strategic Command to be the NC3 enterprise lead, with increased responsibilities for operations, requirements, and systems engineering and integration,” a U.S. STRATCOM spokeswoman told SpaceNews. The Pentagon's 2018 Nuclear Posture Review found the NC3 system “subject to challenges from both aging system components and new, growing 21st century threats” such as cyber warfare. The report also warned that “Russian nuclear or non-nuclear strategic attacks could now include attacks against U.S. NC3." “The Secretary [of Defense] has told me multiple times," Gen. John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, said in a recent speech at the nuclear submarine base in King's Bay, Georgia. "Besides your day-to-day operational responsibilities ... your next highest priority is to make sure we get nuclear command and control right.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/c2-comms/2018/07/25/strategic-command-will-now-oversee-nuclear-communications/

Dakota Wood SUMMARY America's military—engaged beyond capacity and in need of rebuilding—is at a crucial juncture. Its current “big-leap” approach to preparing for future conflict carries great risk in searching for revolutionary capabilities through force-wide commitments to major single-solution programs. The Heritage Foundation's Rebuilding America's Military Project (RAMP) recommends that the U.S. military instead adopt an iterative, experimentation-heavy approach that can achieve revolutionary outcomes at less risk through evolutionary improvements that build on each other until transformative tipping points are reached. Critical to this is a military culture that is immersed in the study of war and a force of sufficient capacity to prepare for the future while also handling current operational commitments. https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/rebuilding-americas-military-thinking-about-the-future

By: Maddy Longwell Congress used its annual defense policy bill to require leadership at the Department of Defense to double down on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Pentagon officials have repeatedly said artificial intelligence is a critical technology to staying ahead of potential adversaries. Earlier this month, the Defense Department reorganized its leadership structure to put a greater emphasis on emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence. In addition, the Pentagon said it plans to spend $1.7 billion over the next five years to stand up a new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, according to new budgeting figures. Most recently, in an agreement between Congressional negotiators released July 23, lawmakers called for the Pentagon to establish a new commission to review advances in AI technology, a 15-member body that would meet regularly until October 2020. Members will be appointed by the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Commerce and members of congressional defense committees. The commission will focus on AI, machine learning and associated technology with respect to national security and defense. It is expected to review the competitiveness of U.S. technology and foreign advances in AI, potential workforce and education incentives to attract and recruit talent for AI and machine learning technology jobs and research ways to foster emphasis and investments in research to stimulate the development of AI technology. The commission is tasked with presenting an initial report to the President and Congress within 180 days of the passage of the bill. It is also expected to produce annual comprehensive reports on the same topics, which will be publicly available. In addition to the new commission, the NDAA bill establishes other changes to address AI, machine learning and quantum science technology. They include: A designated official to coordinate AI and machine learning technology development The bill instructs the Secretary of Defense to designate an official who will be responsible for “developing a strategic plan to develop, adopt and transition artificial intelligence technologies into operational use.” This version encourages the official to partner with industry, academia and private industries, and use the “flexibility of regulations and acquisition,” to develop and field AI and machine learning technology for the Department of Defense. Reports submitted by the Secretary of Defense about US competitiveness in emerging technologies The bill also requires that the Secretary of Defense and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency submit classified reports that compare the capabilities of the United States and its adversaries in emerging technology areas. The reports are expected to evaluate hypersonic, AI, quantum information science and directed energy weapons technologies. The NDAA bill says that reports should include evaluations of spending, quantity, quality, test infrastructure, work force and the willingness of adversaries to use technology. Improving the Air Force supply chain The NDAA bill allows the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics to use funds for “non-traditional technologies and sustainment practices [which includes artificial intelligence] to increase the availability of aircraft to the Air Force and decrease backlogs and lead times for the production of parts.” The assistant secretary is able to use up to $42.8 million for research, development, test and evaluation. https://www.c4isrnet.com/newsletters/daily-brief/2018/07/24/how-congress-wants-dod-to-tackle-ai-and-machine-learning-in-2019/