The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has announced a new initiative to partner with security agencies to advance multi-domain operations, specifically to improve teamwork in regards to air operations, Heidi Grant, DSCA director said on Thursday.

"To effectively build a partnership and team in air operations, we work with our allies to bring them into a multi-domain environment," Grant said. "In this era of renewed great power competition, our adversaries will not be operating in singular land, air or sea domains. They will be operating in multi-domain environments to include cyber and space."

Grant added that the agency should work to operationalize a multi-domain approach to enable more effective air-power teaming. The DSCA team has worked actively with geographic combatant commands, military departments and the U.S. defense industry to ensure defense sales are more holistic, as well as monitor international competitions to create further opportunities to expand the use of U.S. platforms with allies and partners.

"We're doing our best to lean forward with new emerging technologies to ensure we have a determination on release in advance of actual system deployment by the U.S. military forces," she said. "I think this has been one of the complaints of FMS … we think about the U.S. first, and we don't think about our allies and partners in advance," Grant said.

Grant was appointed to her new role as DSCA director in July 2020, succeeding LTG Charles Hooper, who has led DSCA since August 2017 and is a former Wash100 Award recipient. She previously served as director of resources at U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Central Command and budget analyst for the office of the undersecretary of defense for comptroller.

About DSCA

DSCA provides program and financial management support for the Department of Defense’s foreign military sales program, offers execution guidance to DoD entities implementing security cooperation initiatives and supports security cooperation workforce development efforts.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of State has worked to quickly improve different arms of the State Department that were redundant and gathered the same COVID-19 data, when the process could be streamlined with advanced technologies and policies.

“I think it’s fair to acknowledge that we at the Department of State could’ve been a bit more mature and further along in our data management efforts prior to the pandemic,” acting Chief Data Officer Janice deGarmo. “While we had a lot of micro-progress throughout the different elements in the department, this pandemic really helped elevate the need for enterprise data management.”

The department has made recent efforts to simultaneously improve its software for collecting and storing data and its governance of the process. The Department of State has also worked to eliminate technical debt department wide so components could pull in COVID-19 data “faster and smarter” from external sources, deGarmo said.

The State Department also established the Enterprise Data Council to implement the Trump administration’s Federal Data Strategy, which the department has since used to prioritize coronavirus data. “We are in the process of creating the first-ever enterprise data strategy, undergoing a data maturity assessment,” deGarmo said. “We also are publishing our first data catalogue ever.”

“If we really want to infuse data into everyday decision making at the department, and elevate data in diplomacy, we have to ensure all of our staff and our officers worldwide know how to use it,” deGarmo said.

Michael Mestrovich, principal deputy chief information officer (CIO) for the U.S. Department of State, delivered a keynote address during Potomac Officers Club’s Secure IT Modernization in Today’s Environment Virtual Event on Wednesday, August 26th.

If you missed the event, you can still register to watch the footage in Potomac Officers Club’s Event Archive.

The Pentagon has announced that it will deliver a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Entropy, to special operators, which will enable users to conduct psychological operations in near-real time in the information environment. 

“As we look at the ability to influence and shape in this environment, we’re going to have to have artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools, specifically for information ops that hit a very broad portfolio,” Gen. Richard Clarke, the commander of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), said. 

Entropy will help reduce the cognitive challenges of personnel performing military information support operations. The tool is currently under development by the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint AI Center (JAIC). Entropy will facilitate forces to compete in this dynamic environment in near-real time.

JAIC has created the tool to ingest data streams consisting of both text and video from what the military calls the information environment and provide the operators with summaries of trends based on the information.

An active portion, which is still under consideration, and would build upon the passive component that is currently under development. In the active portion, the systems will take the topics identified, feed them into a language model, then downselect messages for the team to review and score. This would help train the algorithm to improve. 

“We’re going to have to understand how the adversary is thinking, how the population is thinking, and work in these spaces in time of relevance. If you’re not at speed, you won’t be relevant," Clarke added. "What we need is adapting data tech that will actually work in this space and we can use it for our organization.”

A minimum viable product for Entropy has already been built and is undergoing testing. The system was designed for USSOCOM Pacific and focuses on three languages: Tagalog, Mandarin and English. Officials said it could be deployed to another region, but it would require language retraining.

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Mark Lewis, director of research and engineering for modernization at the Department of Defense (DoD), said he believes artificial intelligence will help advance human-machine teaming, Defense News reported Thursday.

“I don’t see human pilots being phased out, I see them being enhanced, not physically, but I see their work, their effectiveness being enhanced by cooperation with artificial intelligence systems,” Lewis said Thursday at the Defense News Conference.

Lewis, who is also acting deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, commented on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) AlphaDogfight Trials in which a Heron Systems-developed AI ‘pilot’ on an F-16 Viper jet came out undefeated against a human Air Force fighter pilot in five rounds of simulated air combat in August.

“The key takeaway from that was the artificial intelligence system did so well because it wasn’t so concerned about self-preservation, it was willing to do things that a human pilot wouldn’t do. And that’s the advantage of artificial intelligence,” Lewis said. “I think the real answer is teaming AI with a human for the best combination of both. So I’m pretty confident we’re going to have human pilots into the future.”

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The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center is working with Deloitte to develop a prototype of a cloud platform that could enable developers to create uses for AI under an $80 million contract awarded in August 2020, Bloomberg Government reported Thursday.

JAIC said the AI development environment, also known as the Joint Common Foundation, will be backed by various cloud platforms including the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program and Cloud One of the U.S. Air Force.

“This development environment is built on top of a cloud platform, so the JCF is not a cloud platform but it will ride on top of JEDI and actually other cloud environments,” Nand Mulchandani, acting director of JAIC, said Thursday during a Pentagon briefing. “So we are not envisioning this as a monolithic central system that is the only system that everyone will use.”

Mulchandani said the JCF will accommodate open-source platforms and other development tools.

“The point is Deloitte will actually be working with industry partners,” Mulchandani said. “We believe and want all of those products to be deployed through the JCF so that our developer community can actually have access to the best tech that is out there.”

During ArchIntel’s AI in Competitive Intelligence Virtual Event, you will hear from federal and industry experts who will address how to remain competitive in business and warfare.

Featuring August Jackson, senior director of Market and Competitive Intelligence with Deltek, AchIntel’s first event will analyze the competitive landscape as technology continues to evolve in the federal marketplace.

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The Department of Energy (DOE) has earmarked $16 million in funds to support research efforts in the usage of artificial intelligence and machine learning for scientific studies and management of complex processes.

The funding opportunity will support the development of AI and ML-based predictive modeling and simulation technologies for physical sciences.

The program will also focus on research activities that will tackle the employment of a decision support approach in handling complex systems. The department will award $3 million for five modeling and simulation projects, while $13 million will be allotted for six decision support studies.

DOE picked the awardees via a competitive peer review process.