Thomas Modly, acting secretary of the U.S. Navy, told his service branch to focus on hypersonic weapons this year, USNI News reported Friday.

The secretary issued a memo, titled SECNAV Vectors 9, that emphasizes the need to be at the lead of hypersonic weapon development due to the technology's increasing significance in the battlefield.

The service branch will conduct hypersonic weapon tests year-round, as per Modly's message.

“As we begin the transition from a development effort to fielding capability, production facilities are ramping up to meet high capacity demand,” Moldy said in the memo.

The Navy's Hypersonic Glide Body would enter testing this spring under the service's plans, the secretary said.

The Office of Management and Budget has allowed agencies to decide whether they need to appoint a chief data officer due to varying data workloads, Federal Times reported Monday.

Suzette Kent, the federal chief information officer and 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said agencies have varying amounts of work; hence, OMB's decision to allow agencies the freedom of whether to employ a CDO. Some agencies have assigned their CIOs or similar officers to hold the responsibilities supposedly intended for the CDO.

The CDO role is part of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, a law that aims to govern how agencies inform policies via data. Kent said the law's description of a CDO's responsibilities may already apply to the work of CIOs at some agencies.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology convened Monday to discuss its focus on artificial intelligence and quantum computing, Nextgov reported Monday.

AI and quantum computing are two of the five “industries of the future” identified by PCAST. The other three were wireless communications, advanced manufacturing and biotechnology.

The Subcommittee on American Action Plan for Global Leadership in Industries of the Future, which was established by PCAST, presented its report and offered recommendations for the federal government to further advance work on quantum computing and AI, including the establishment of a national network of user facilities.

“This would jumpstart quantum algorithm and application development and quantum computer science; make a critical scientific and computational resource available to scientists at U.S. national laboratories and universities; and serve as a market-making catalyst for accelerated growth in the U.S. industry producing quantum hardware and software,” the subcommittee said of the national network.

The subcommittee also suggested the creation of a secure quantum internet that would provide researchers a common infrastructure to collaborate on quantum computing-related work.

The National Science Foundation has commissioned a partnership between two different organizations for the development of a new education-focused research data hub.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research and the American Educational Research Association will jointly work to foster education, collaboration and community across science, technology, engineering and mathematics data sources, NSF said Friday.

The two will form the Partnership for Expanding Education Research in STEM or PEERS, a web-based data resource hub that would feature new kinds of data and resources to encourage STEM collaboration. The partners will also provide professional development, training and technical support for the expansion of data access and fruition of innovative concepts.

NSF's Directorate of Education and Human Resources launched a competition to select the partnership's participants. Margaret Levenstein, ICPSR director, and Felice Levine, AERA executive director, will serve as PEERS' principal investigators.

“This collaboration reinforces our commitment to build something larger than ourselves and to bring others into the conversation,” Levenstein said.

The Naval Information Warfare Center hosted an event that sought to provide working opportunities and augment communication exchanges with industry.

Attended by over 200 participants from industry and the public sector, the event highlighted panel segments that focused on DevOps topics, the U.S. Navy said Friday.

Participants were also given the opportunity to speak with the panelists and engage in constructive exchanges.

Robin Rourk, a small business deputy director at NIWC Atlantic, said these events enable the government to discuss defense contractor capacities and provide the industry with opportunities to address technical gaps.

Listed as a primary focus area by NIWC, DevOps is a workplace approach that allows developers and operations personnel to interact with security and quality assurance employees to accelerate and secure the development of software products.

The Air Force Materiel Command entered into an agreement with the Air Force Combat Command to optimize communication capabilities between operational teams and program offices in a bid to help warfighters meet mission requirements.

The partnership will focus on developing a framework that will assist airmen in comprehending operational and maintenance standards for weapons systems during their lifecycle as part of the Lead Wing Collaboration program, the U.S. Air Force said Friday.

The program seeks to expand on previous agreements between the two commands and will conduct yearly reviews to validate if they can be incorporated into other weapon platforms or facilities.

“Strong lines of communication and a robust exchange of information between our operators and acquisition professionals is critical to delivering what the Air Force needs to succeed,” said Gen. Arnold Bunch, commander at AFMC.