Pentagon, private sector must partner to fight new era of cyberattacks

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  15 octobre 2020 | International, Naval

  Defense spending up in San Diego, counteracting pandemic, report find

  The report found increases in spending and jobs in the defense sector has helped stabilize the local economy ANDREW DYER Defense spending across San Diego County bolstered the local economy during the pandemic this year and now accounts for a quarter of the county's gross regional product, according to a new report released Tuesday. According to the annual Military Economic Impact Report, more than $33 billion in direct payments — via payroll, defense contracts, and retirement and veterans benefits — went to people and companies in the county during the 2020 fiscal year. That spending, along with spillover that researchers call a multiplier effect, equates to a total economic impact of more than $52 billion — 25 percent of San Diego's gross regional product. The numbers show an increase of 5.7 percent in direct spending and a 7.7 percent increase in jobs that pencils out to 342,486 jobs. Numbers in this year's report differ from last year's in part because Rady School of Management at UC San Diego compiled and analyzed the data, using modeling that was more conservative than prior calculations, said Mark Balmert, CEO of the San Diego Military Advisory Council, which commissions the annual report. Almost 60,000 active duty sailors and 50,000 active duty Marines make up the largest factions of employment, the report says, with more than 30,000 local civilians also employed by the Defense Department. Indirect employment linked to defense contracts adds roughly 190,000 jobs — about 15,000 more than fiscal year 2019. The presence of the military and defense industries has softened the economic blow of the pandemic, Balmert said. “The Rady School team did a great job of independently confirming what many of us already know, that the Defense budget provides an incredible stabilizing force during economic downturns such as we are experiencing during COVID19,” Balmert, a retired rear admiral, wrote in an email. The report singled-out the impacts of three Nimitz-class aircraft carriers that call San Diego home — the USS Carl Vinson, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and the USS Abraham Lincoln. Each ship, the report notes, brings more than 3,000 sailors, making the three together a top-10 employer in San Diego. Each carrier contributes about $767 million to the region, the report says. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2020-10-13/defense-spending-up-in-san-diego-counteracting-pandemic-report-finds

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  20 juin 2018 | International, Terrestre

  US Army test-fires Belgian-made gun amid plans for Stryker upgrade competition

  Pierre Tran PARIS ― The U.S. Army's test-firing of a 30mm gun turret from CMI Defence is seen by the Belgian firm as putting it in a privileged position for an upcoming tender for greater firepower for the Stryker combat vehicle, a company spokesman said. “We're in pole position, “ Xavier Rigo, communications manager of CMI Defence, told Defense News on June 18. “That does not mean we will win the race, but it puts us in a very good position. We are very proud to have been selected for tests, a real recognition for our team and our equipment.” That test-firing stems from a cooperative research and development agreement CMI signed in 2015 with the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, which is seeking a lethality upgrade for the Stryker. CMI adapted the turret to fit the U.S. requirement for linkless ammunition, he said. ATK supplies the 30mm gun, which CMI fitted to its turret. The Belgian company also supplies a 105mm gun turret for a bid led by SAIC in the U.S. tender for the Mobile Protected Firepower program. CMI has fielded its Cockerill 3105 turret, which uses its turret and 105mm cannon, with the latter built in a factory in northern France. A Cockerill 3105 turret was among the products on display at the CMI stand at the Eurosatory trade show, which ran June 11-15. The stand at the show two years ago used the Cockerill brand name. BAE Systems, General Dynamics Land Systems and SAIC are the competitors in that Mobile Protected Firepower competition, Rigo said. The next step is a down-select to two bidders, which will be asked to build and supply 12 prototype vehicles for tests. In Europe, CMI is ”in discussion with the Belgian government“ in its search for a role in Belgium's planned €1 billion (U.S. $1.2 billion) acquisition of the Griffon and Jaguar armored vehicles from the French Army Scorpion program. Those talks are exploring the possibility for CMI to participate in local production and maintenance of the Scorpion vehicles, he said. The Belgian project, dubbed Capacité Mobilisé, or CAMO, sparked debate, as the planned acquisition boosted French contractors Arquus, Nexter and Thales, but left CMI turrets by the wayside. CMI has delivered 130 gun turrets and is building some 20 turrets per month to supply GDLS, which has a contract with a Middle Eastern country, he said, declining to identify the client nation. Those turrets are based on four modules, armed with 30mm, 90 mm, 105 mm, and both 105mm and 30mm guns. There are both manned and unmanned versions of the turret. Canadian broadcaster CBC reported March 19 that GLDS Canada has sold to Saudi Arabia combat vehicles armed with 105mm and 30mm guns for ”heavy assault,” anti-tank and direct-fire support. CMI conducted a firing demonstration of its six Cockerill gun turrets June 15 at the French Army Suippes firing range, eastern France. Some 60 representatives of foreign army delegations attended, the company said in a statement. The Belgian company had been one of the bidders for Arquus, the then-Governmental Sales unit of Volvo Group, until the Swedish truck maker canceled the sale. Nexter had been the other bidder. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/eurosatory/2018/06/19/us-army-test-fires-belgian-made-gun-amid-plans-for-stryker-upgrade-competition/

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  9 septembre 2019 | International, C4ISR

  Who should manage the Pentagon’s AI data? DARPA’s director has a suggestion.

  By: Jill Aitoro The Pentagon's needs one central hub to manage all of the data supporting artificial intelligence across the services — and the newly stood-up Joint Artificial Intelligence Center should be the entity to take that on, said Steve Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA has funded foundational AI work for 56 years, now concentrating on what Walker calls third wave AI that focuses on human and machine interaction as well as building “trust and explainability” of the data, Walker said during a panel discussion at the Defense News Conference on Sept. 4. “Everybody should own it, but I think there's a real need in [the Department of Defense] to understand how to do what we call AI engineering,” he said. “We can do the foundational part, the research, but who's going to manage the data? Who's going to update the data as it changes? Who's going to update the algorithms as the data changes? "I know that the Joint AI Center has stood up in the department. I've encouraged them to take that on for all of DoD and all the services. I think that would be an excellent role for them.” Established in June 2018, the Joint AI Center is an effort to accelerate the Pentagon's adoption and integration of AI at scale. As a center of excellence, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, JAIC's director, said the organization was intended to expand beyond product delivery to include “strategic engagement and policy, plans and analysis, and intelligence and more.” It's been billed as a clearing house for organizing the DoD's thinking and projects related to AI. That said, it's too soon to know whether JAIC will take Walker's advice and serve as a central manager of sorts for AI data; he did say leadership seemed “amenable” to the idea. A centralized hub for data could also ease efforts underway by agencies. The Air Force has people plugged in with the JAIC effort, as well as DARPA and academic institutions. The service is starting an AI accelerator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where members of the Air Force are embedding with the university's computer science and AI lab. “We're trying to make it real, to take some of what Dr. Walker and his team had been working on and turn it into something that our airmen out in the field can use across the spectrum,” said Gen. Stephen “Seve” Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff. “Whether you're logistics, whether you're an operator, whether you're space. I would make it real.” At the end of the day, successful AI efforts are based on big data sets. Without that underlying data, the Pentagon is “building a house on sand,” said Juliana Vida, the chief technical adviser for the public sector at Splunk, Inc. “If you don't get the foundation right, the input into the machine-learning algorithm is not going to be complete. It's not going to be correct. Even though it's not cool and it doesn't go bang and it's not sexy, the data is the underlying piece to all of these other technologies,” Vida said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/09/06/who-should-control-the-pentagons-ai-data-darpas-director-has-a-suggestion/