Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, director at Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, spoke about the use of commercial artificial intelligence technology, C4ISRNET reported Friday. 

He cited the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regimen’s plan to use AI in predicting future maintenance requirements of their H60 aircraft. Based on the regiment’s needs, JAIC developed its first analytics model of a possible “failure mode,” which they sent to the 160th SOAR in March.

JAIC is also in the process of developing an AI-developed model for predicting fires for use in emergency response applications. Road blockages and floods are also on its list of possible situations to which such models can be applied.

According to Lt. Gen. Shanahan, he has “not seen in any case yet [where] you just take a commercial capability and immediately apply it to a military problem,” he said. “You might have a narrow solution to a narrow slice of an overall problem, but what we’re interested in doing is understand how does it fit into DoD systems, DoD workflows.”

When asked about the future, Lt. Gen. Shanahan replied, “We just started on cyber. We’ve got three lines of effort, but we expect to expand that very quickly based on requirements from Cyber Command and others.”

Gen. David Goldfein, U.S. Air Force chief of staff, said the U.S. military must shift its hardware-focused purchasing approach to one that emphasizes more on software, he wrote in a commentary posted Friday on Defense News.

Goldfein noted the importance of software in connecting mission systems across land, sea, air, space and cyber domains in the modern, multidomain battlefield. Multidomain operations rely on software systems that integrate data and support decision-making efforts of commanders, he said.

The general also stated that commanders would need fortified versions of navigational mobile apps, such as Google Maps, to gain real-time information about enemy locations across multiple domains. The U.S. military would offer American industry the opportunity to aid in creating a network and multiple software that would link multidomain weapons together in one integrated system.

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), a 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said artificial intelligence could help speed up the processing of security clearances within days and the U.S. government should allocate resources to further develop and leverage AI capabilities, Fifth Domain reported Friday.

“First, we should increase the resources devoted to research and development. That’s an easy one,” Hurd said Thursday at the Dell Technologies Forum. “The government can also set an example and lead the way in adopting AI. This can save taxpayer dollars, tons of money and make government more efficient.”

Hurd, who announced that he will not run for re-election in 2020, said the government and industry should collaborate to address cybersecurity threats. He also discussed the shortage of cyber professionals and security threats associated with internet of things.

“It has to be more than just information sharing,” Hurd said. “That’s not happening enough, but we have to establish a framework [on] operation collaboration that not only combines incident response, but mitigation and prevention as well.”

James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, announced the establishment of a new deputy assistant secretary role to help the service branch develop policies to support the execution of its sustainment mission, the Navy website reported Friday.

“Sustainment is as critical as new construction to ensure Navy is ready to deploy,” Geurts said. “This position will allow us to improve and align the complex drivers of maintenance and modernization completion; that in turn will increase our output to the fleet.”

The deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for sustainment will directly report to Geurts and manage sustainment funding and lifecycle management policies across the Department of the Navy to help meet the Pentagon’s readiness objectives.

The service branch has initiated several programs to better manage maintenance work, including Perform to Plan initiative and Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded a $7.1M grant to Cornell University for the establishment of a new research facility.

Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, a national physics research site, will have a new subfacility for materials research via AFRL’s support, the university said Wednesday.

CHESS offers synchrotron radiation facilities to help researchers study atomic and molecular structures across multiple scientific disciplines.

The new subfacility, named the Materials Solutions Network or MSN-C, will feature two X-ray beamlines available to material researchers from the Department of Defense. These tools would help researchers address structural and functional needs in military-grade materials.

“There is a great need for this type of research in the U.S. to keep us competitive at the global scale,” said Arthur Woll, MSN-C’s director.