John Zangardi, chief information officer at the Department of Homeland Security, said DHS believes a multicloud approach would be the best way to advance information technology modernization, Federal News Network reported Tuesday. He said savings on hardware is one of the major factors to consider with cloud technology.

“So our focus right now is within the HQ organization,” Zangardi said on Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “I’m going to start with training, we’ve held two cloud stand-down days, where we’re doing online training. And the initial phase of this is to focus on creating a general understanding of what cloud offers to my workforce.”

He said the second phase will focus on personnel performing the work and the last phase will deal with identifying the certification and training needs of people who will deliver the services.

Zangardi said his office provides standards to help DHS agencies oversee their components through the multicloud approach and that his primary concern is mission accomplishment and data security in the cloud environment. He also discussed the department’s data center consolidation and cloud migration efforts.

The Government Accountability Office released a report on Tuesday stating that the Department of Defense is yet to fully implement a pilot open-source software program as directed by the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. Agencies are required by the Office of Management and Budget to establish a pilot program to designate 20 percent of new custom codes as open-source and create metrics for program performance.

GAO noted that DoD hasn’t issued a government-wide policy on using open-source code and has yet to fully conduct software analyses, secure data rights and facilitate the open-source community. In addition, the watchdog said that DoD components were unable to agree on how to manage cybersecurity for open-source activities.

Defense components said that an open-source pilot program would “potentially result in financial benefits and increased efficiency,” according to GAO.

The National Science and Technology Council released a supplemental report to President Trump’s budget request stating that the federal government intends to allocate $1B for nondefense artificial intelligence efforts in fiscal 2020, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

Michael Kratsios, U.S. chief technology officer and a 2019 Wash100 Award winner, told attendees at a Center for Data Innovation event that the report demonstrates the government’s “increased emphasis on AI” and helps inform future investments.

“The U.S. has pushed the boundaries for computational power, we have given our innovators the freedom to thrive, and today we can proudly say America continues to be the leader in artificial intelligence,” he said.

According to Kratsios, such insights on agencies’ future AI efforts will help the government foster partnerships between public, private and academic sectors. The figure stated in the report represents a significant increase from 2016.

The Military Health System deployed its new electronic health care record at four medical sites belonging to the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army. The system said Saturday that it activated its MHS GENESIS record at David Grant USAF Medical Center, Naval Health Clinic Lemoore, U.S. Army Health Clinic Presidio of Monterey and Mountain Home Air Force Base’s 366th Medical Group.

MHS Genesis is designed to standardize electronic health recording across the Department of Defense’s more than 9.5M beneficiaries and allow for the delivery of integrated health care. MHS also seeks to streamline activities and boost patient safety via the new electronic health record.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ and MHS’ respective electronic health records use the same software and will allow for interoperability with one another when fully functional. MHS will continue to roll GENESIS out in successive waves with three-month intervals beginning spring 2020, with full deployment scheduled for the end of 2023.

The implementation’s next three waves of medical centers will include sites in California, Nevada and Alaska.

The Space Development Agency’s Warfighter Council has begun facilitating meetings to discuss national defense needs to support the development of SDA programs, Air Force Magazine reported Monday. The council was created along with SDA’s establishment in March.

“It provides expertise and recommendations on current and emerging operational challenges, and the adversarial threat environment to inform the SDA’s architectural development, prototyping, and experimentation plans,” explained Jennifer Elzea, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense.

The Warfighter Council’s 20 member organizations also “demonstrate a clear connection” to potential threats that warfighters might face in relation to space, she added. The group intends to conduct meetings every quarter, with another meeting slated for the end of the year.

Council members include representatives from entities like the Joint Chiefs of Staff and intelligence community as well as the combatant commands.