Lisa Sanders, director of Science and Technology for special operations forces, acquisition, technology and logistics at U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), said contested environments where data and computing power are unavailable are pushing the military to reinvent artificial intelligence and come up with new insights into how people use AI, Defense One reported Wednesday.

SOCOM is determining ways how to shrink AI and identifying areas to focus on where AI could support missions of warfighters operating in environments where connectivity is lacking.

“What are use cases where I can create some things that AI at the edge can process? Things like being able to tell a direction, a distance,” Sanders said.

SOCOM is working to develop new software tools that could help address the challenge posed by translation to soldiers.

“We’re doing a six-month effort where we are doing a representative language (not a high-density language)… to figure out how big that thesaurus needs to be. How much flexibility does it need to have to be operationally relevant? That’s an example where processing at the edge is going to limit us. Those analytics need the power to run,” Sanders told the publication.

The command is also working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on programs that could help develop AI applications for warfighters operating in contested environments.

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The Congressional Research Service has released a report outlining some of the national security implications of 5G-enabled mobile technologies. CRS said in the April 23rd report that Congress may consider policies for national security, spectrum management, and military operations as 5G platforms are developed and fielded. 

According to the document, large portions of the usable electromagnetic spectrum are held by the Department of Defense (DOD), which also uses sub-6 frequencies. The Defense Innovation Board (DIB) recommended that DOD help facilitate the development of 5G networks by considering sharing the sub-6 spectrum. 

The report also discusses the national security risks posed by China’s telecommunications equipment and 5G infrastructure and 5G’s potential military applications, specifically for command and control, autonomous vehicles, logistics and virtual and augmented reality.

“Command and control systems could benefit from the high speed, low latency capability of 5G. For example, the U.S. military currently uses satellite communications for most of its long-distance communications. However, satellites on orbit can significantly increase latency due to the amount of distance a signal needs to travel, causing delays in the execution of military operations,” the report reads.

The Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, a new organization within the U.S. Army, asks the private sector for information on cloud and data management services, C4ISRnet reported Tuesday.

The Army wants to migrate applications to commercial cloud platforms and standardize data management across the service branch. The first of two requests for information said the Army needs a contract vehicle for cloud migration and corresponding modernization services.

Army applications will migrate to cARMY, a cloud environment the service intends to use for a variety of purposes.

The second RFI seeks services to manage the Enterprise Data Management Platform, which will store data and accommodate artificial intelligence activities for the Army.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will host an online industry event from June 23rd to 24th to inform companies about the Defense Sciences Office's upcoming research pursuits.

Discover DSO Day participants will gain insight into the office's science and technology priorities over the next year, DARPA said Tuesday.

Panel discussions at the event will cover the following topics: alternative computing, next-generation artificial intelligence, under governed spaces, resilient and environment-resistant systems, sensing, communications and metrology.

The office will also use the event to further explain an upcoming solicitation scheduled for release prior to the event. Proposers may engage in discussions with program managers from DARPA.

DARPA Director Stefanie Tompkins and DSO Director Valerie Browning will also present at the event.

William Nelson, director of the U.S. Army's cross-functional team for assured position, navigation and timing (PNT), said the service wants to maintain access to its future payloads hosted on non-Army satellites, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

Nelson said the Army does not want to build its own intelligence constellation but instead wants to make sure it can access its own payloads on satellites hosted by other services, federal agencies, or commercial entities.

The service branch seeks access to a tactical layer of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites that help missiles navigate through adversarial territory.

The Army is now in talks with the U.S. Space Force, the Space Development Agency (SDA) and the intelligence community to achieve this goal.

The Department of Defense (DOD) has informed ethical hackers that they can now look for security issues across DOD's publicly available information systems under its expanded Vulnerability Disclosure Program.

DOD said Tuesday that its Cyber Crime Center-led program now covers public defense networks, connected devices and frequency-based communications platforms.

"This expansion is a testament to transforming the government's approach to security and leapfrogging the current state of technology within DOD," said Brett Goldstein, the director of the Defense Digital Service.

The initiative is a product of the “Hack the Pentagon” pilot project launched by the Pentagon five years ago in collaboration with bug bounty platform provider HackerOne to identify security flaws on publicly accessible defense websites.

Participants have reported over 29,000 vulnerabilities to the department since the program's inception, with more than 70 percent of the reports deemed to be valid, according to officials.

DC3 Director Kristopher Johnson said DOD's online portals account for a portion of its entire attack surface.

If you're interested in cybersecurity, check out GovCon Wire's Defense Cybersecurity Forum coming up on May 12. Click here to learn more.