David Spirk, chief data officer of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said the command is seeking artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to support the development of Hyper Enabled Operator technology, C4ISRnet reported Saturday. The HEO effort is slated to succeed SOCOM’s Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit program which will run for five years.

“The only way we have HEO in the future is if we can reduce the cognitive load of that operator and his ability to command his resources at his disposal through automation and applied AI,” Spirk said.

He added that ML and AI technologies can improve automation at operation centers, support mission-specific forecasting and help operators leverage and disseminate intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data in the field.

SOCOM intends to hold an AI symposium this month to discuss plans for establishing a sustainable AI portfolio.

Twenty-five agency program offices have detailed their plans for digital transformation and customer service improvement in line with President Trump’s Management Agenda, Federal News Network reported Friday.

The program offices, named by the Office of Management and Budget as high-impact service providers, issued their annual strategies on Performance.gov. As part of its strategy, the Internal Revenue Service intends to reduce cases of fraudulent payments by 2 percent through 2024.

The State Department is also planning to launch workforce re-skilling efforts to improve customer service by fiscal 2022. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, plans to deploy self-service tools and digitize its forms before fiscal 2022.

Plans issued on the website include performance metrics for agencies’ self-evaluation purposes and largely focus on call center consolidation, improving digital services and retraining personnel for better customer service.

Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of homeland security, has announced his department’s new strategic framework to address terrorism and targeted violence. The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that its new strategic framework aims to understand the changing terrorism environment, prevent terrorists from U.S. entry and boost defenses of the country’s infrastructure.

“Today, the United States faces an evolving threat environment and a threat of terrorism and targeted violence within our borders that is more diverse than at any time since the 9/11 attacks,” he said.

McAleenan announced the new framework during an event at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C. The country’s awareness of growing threats has encouraged the department to also cover adversaries at U.S. borders, in addition to terrorists overseas, McAleenan added.

The U.S. Navy has laid the keel of LCS 28 or the future USS Savannah, formally marking the start of the littoral combat ship’s construction. The service branch said Friday that it laid and authenticated the ship’s keel during a ceremony the same day at Austal USA’s shipyard in Mobile, Ala.

Dianne Isakson, spouse of Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., performed the keel’s authentication as the ship’s sponsor. LCS units are designed to address enemy mines, small seacraft and submarines near coasts and shores.

Savannah is among five Independence-variant LCS vessels under construction at Austal USA’s shipyard.

The U.S. Air Force’s 548th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group and 9th Security Forces Squadron have partnered to test an artificial drone technology designed to map infrastructure. USAF said Saturday that the Hivemapper airborne video map program currently in beta testing at Beale Air Force Base in California works to record imagery and helps an unmanned aerial system to track change detection through visualization and analytic tools.

The mapping technology has the potential to help civil engineers collect imagery of military base construction and maintenance projects, the service branch noted. The 3D platform is equipped with recovery and safety features for civilian users.

“With deployments across the Air Force, the Air Force Research Laboratory and Air Force Special Operations Command to name a few, the Hivemapper team continues to learn and grow with the Air Force to deliver capabilities in demand by airmen in the field,” Hivemapper CEO Ariel Seidman said.

The Hivemapper-Beale AFB partnership seeks to introduce the mapping platform to other installations.

The Australian government has pledged to collaborate with NASA on the latter’s approach to put astronauts back on the moon by 2024 and to further explore deep-space destinations such as Mars. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised to increase the Australian Space Agency’s budget to support its commitment to the lunar exploration program called Artemis and the Moon to Mars campaign, NASA said Saturday.

A joint statement of intent signed by the two agencies’ top officials establishes a path for collaboration in the robotics, remote asset management and automation areas. NASA aims to demonstrate new technology platforms and business approaches necessary to carry out future exploration that includes the Red Planet as well as expand its number of commercial and international partners through the Artemis program.

Both countries have a long tradition of collaborating on space activities such as the monitoring and communication of NASA missions via the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex and multiple data relay satellite centers across Australia under an agreement signed in 1960.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has released an interim report providing updates on the activities of a task force created in 2018 to help assess and manage risks to the information and communications technology supply chain.

The ICT supply chain risk management task force has four working groups with specific areas of focus, the Department of Homeland Security’s CISA said. The first working group focuses on the sharing of actionable data about supply chain risks, while the second group deals with the evaluation of supply chain threats.

The two other working groups center their efforts on the identification of structures, processes and criteria for establishing Qualified Manufacturer Lists and Qualified Bidder Lists and development of policy recommendations to incentivize the procurement of ICT from authorized resellers and original equipment manufacturers.

Bob Kolasky, assistant director for CISA’s national risk management center, said at the CISA Cybersecurity Summit the ICT task force will kick off discussions about risk management challenges facing small- and medium-sized enterprises.