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NIST Expresses Intent to Launch Funding Opportunity for AI-Focused Manufacturing USA Institute; Gina Raimondo Quoted
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NIST Expresses Intent to Launch Funding Opportunity for AI-Focused Manufacturing USA Institute; Gina Raimondo Quoted

The National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a notice of intent to launch a competition for a Manufacturing USA institute enabled by artificial intelligence.

NIST on Tuesday announced plans for the AI institute funding opportunity, which will open in early spring.

The facility will be the 18th addition to the Manufacturing USA network of regional research and development centers across the country. It is expected to “help domestic manufacturers maximize the potential of AI,” boosting their productivity, resilience and competence in the global marketplace,” according to Laurie Locascio, NIST director and under secretary of Commerce for standards and technology.

“AI is an accelerator of our productivity and of human abilities — it can make us better, faster and stronger in so many ways,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo shared. “I’m particularly excited about the potential for AI to supercharge manufacturing and the ways it can strengthen American workers and businesses and make our country more competitive in the global economy.”

The Potomac Officers Club’s 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit is only a week away and registration is still open. Click here to sign up and take part in the event.

POC - 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit
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CISA Releases SCuBA Guidance for Hybrid Identity Management
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CISA Releases SCuBA Guidance for Hybrid Identity Management

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Secure Cloud Business Applications project, a.k.a. SCuBA, has released new guidance to assist federal agencies in implementing cybersecurity capabilities as they migrate identity authentication from traditional on-premises enterprise networks  to the cloud.

The SCuBA Hybrid Identity Solutions Guidance aims to help agencies better understand identity management in a hybrid environment in which on-premises and cloud-based identity services are deployed as an agency’s primary identity system, CISA said Tuesday.

CISA outlined different approaches for incorporating cloud-based identity services for authentication and defined associated implementation and security considerations.

According to the document, agencies must plan to migrate to cloud-based, password-less authentication via their existing investments in public key infrastructure and personal identity verification or common access cards.

Agencies may also use the second version of the Fast Identity Online standardized authentication protocol or the Web Authentication standard.

CISA also recommends that agencies use modern authenticators and open standards-based protocols when transitioning to a cloud-primary authentication approach.

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Defense Innovation Unit Begins Competitive Search for EMI-proof UAS Communication Systems
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Defense Innovation Unit Begins Competitive Search for EMI-proof UAS Communication Systems

The Defense Innovation Unit launched an area of interest solicitation in pursuit of technologies that will provide clear communication to small uncrewed aerial systems in the battlefield despite electromagnetic spectrum interference.

DIU specified that the product may be hardware- or software-based, or hybrid, but should be openly accessible and interoperable without vendor-specific licensing requirements.

The agency is looking for cost-effective candidates with multiple bandwidth capabilities, low latency and low probability of intercept. Point to point or mesh networking capabilities are considered an advantage.

The prototypes must be compliant with federal information protection standards, including the Department of Defense risk management framework. They must be ready for testing in six to nine months.

Responses to the solicitation are due by March 25.

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Commerce Department Now Responsible for Additional $2.5B in Grants to Intel
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Commerce Department Now Responsible for Additional $2.5B in Grants to Intel

The Department of Defense has halted its plan to issue $2.5 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding to Intel, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Responsibility for these allocations has now been passed to the Department of Commerce, which was originally set to provide $1 billion of the total funding.

Passed in August 2022, the CHIPS and Science Act aims to rejuvenate the domestic microelectronics manufacturing industry, bolster supply chains and create jobs by investing in American semiconductor providers.

The initial deal between the DOD, Commerce Department and Intel included $3.5 billion in total funding and would have solidified Intel as the prime supplier for military and intelligence organizations. Now, it is up to the Commerce Department to evaluate its distribution of CHIPS and Science Act funding and fill in this gap.

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Maxar Books Army OTA for Phase 4 of Army’s One World Terrain Program; Susanne Hake Quoted
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Maxar Books Army OTA for Phase 4 of Army’s One World Terrain Program; Susanne Hake Quoted

Maxar Intelligence has closed an other transaction agreement with the U.S. Army to continue supporting the One World Terrain Program, a component of the service branch’s synthetic training environment, or STE, that works to deliver 3D global terrain capability.

Under Phase 4, the company said Tuesday it will deliver enhanced 3D terrain representation for STE training simulation software / training management tool modeling, simulation and training capabilities.

In the previous stage, Maxar improved the conflation of open-source geospatial data and focused on enhancing training areas.

Susanne Hake, the company’s general manager for U.S. government, commented, “Maxar is proud to play an important role in supporting the U.S. Army’s modernization initiatives through the One World Terrain program, a forward-leaning solution that enables more sophisticated modeling, simulation and training systems to optimize warfighter readiness.”

Maxar inherited the OWT contract through Vricon, which the geospatial intelligence provider acquired in July 2020.

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Google’s Aaron Weis & Baird’s Jean Stack Deemed First-Rate GovCon Influencers via Executive Mosaic’s 2024 Wash100
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Google’s Aaron Weis & Baird’s Jean Stack Deemed First-Rate GovCon Influencers via Executive Mosaic’s 2024 Wash100

Profiles in Executive Mosaic publications today highlighted the efforts and achievements of two of the government contracting industry’s most valuable members: Google Public Sector Managing Director of Technology Aaron Weis and Baird Managing Director Jean Stack.

Both leaders are multi-time recipients of the Wash100 Award, one of GovCon’s highest honors. The award is EM’s esteemed annual catalog of the 100 most powerful technologists, government officials and noted executives who are charting the course of the sector’s future. After the winners are announced every January, a popular vote is held until the end of April to crown a most beloved GovCon exec. Cast your 10 votes today!

2024 is Weis’ fifth time receiving the Wash100, and he particularly impressed EM over the last year with his smooth and impactful transition from government as chief information officer of the U.S. Department of the Navy to his current post at Google. Along the way, Weis has remained an adamant champion of zero trust cybersecurity, ethical AI usage and more cutting edge tech. Read about his fascinating career trajectory in his GovCon Wire profile here!

Stack is not far behind Weis, with four Wash100 Awards to her name. She earned her latest by dint of her “reputation as the ultimate networker is solidified by her consistent performance, by her strong online media presence and by Baird’s annual high-profile Defense Conference,” according to Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson. She also assisted Baird in its advisement and involvement in several high-profile M&A deals. Dive into all things Jean Stack in her ExecutiveBiz profile here.

The teams at Google Public Sector and Baird share this award with these executives. Congratulations to all!

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DARPA to Host Industry Day for Rubble to Rockets Program
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DARPA to Host Industry Day for Rubble to Rockets Program

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will hold an Industry Day on March 18 to provide potential vendors with information on a program that aims to establish design and production approaches that can accommodate widely variable materials to address current manufacturing limitations in supply chain-denied environments.

Under the Rubble to Rockets (R2) program, selected offerers will build a flexible, inexpensive platform to support the production of raw materials and use that platform to modify the structural design of a sounding rocket.

“Existing manufacturing approaches require stability. Building a framework that can enable the manufacture of structures out of anything, anywhere, and at many sizes would break the status quo for manufacturing in resource-contested environments,” said Hunter Martin, program manager for the R2 program at DARPA.

“We’re focusing on sounding rockets for proof of concept because they represent a single-use structure with multiple components and complex structural requirements, but anticipate broad applicability to a wide range of manufacturing use cases – from spare parts and infrastructure repair to system production,” added Martin.

The R2 program will also advance the use of material informatics and novel manufacturing and processing techniques.

Interested stakeholders should register no later than Wednesday, March 13.

Senate Bill to Expand Commercial Access to Mid-Band Spectrum
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Senate Bill to Expand Commercial Access to Mid-Band Spectrum

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and John Thune, R-S.D., have introduced new legislation to give commercial wireless users more access to mid-band spectrum.

The Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2024 would require the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to identify at least 2,500 megahertz of mid-band spectrum that can be reallocated for commercial use and sharing in the next five years, including at least 1,250 megahertz in the next two years, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation said Monday.

The bill would also renew the Federal Communications Commission’s congressional authority to run spectrum auctions and require that at least 1,250 megahertz of spectrum be auctioned for full-power use, including 5G, within six years of the bill’s passing.

Under the bill, the FCC would also allocate at least 125 megahertz of additional spectrum for unlicensed services.

“To dominate in next-generation wireless technologies, stay ahead of our adversaries, and advance strong economic growth, the U.S. must create a pipeline to expand commercial access to mid-band spectrum,” Cruz said.

“The Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2024 meets those goals while promoting both consumer and national security interests,” he added.

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VA, DOD Deploy Federal Electronic Health Record System at Joint Facility in Illinois
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VA, DOD Deploy Federal Electronic Health Record System at Joint Facility in Illinois

The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs and the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization office have jointly installed a single, fully integrated electronic health record system at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois.

The Federal EHR system will enable Lovell FHCC to streamline the delivery of care to approximately 75,000 patients annually and support secure data sharing across multiple organizations, the VA said Saturday.

“A joint electronic health record system demonstrates the power of technology to improve health care delivery, and we look forward to continued collaboration with our VA partners,” said Lester Martinez-Lopez, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

Bill Tinston, director of the Federal EHR Modernization office, said that the joint deployment at Lovell FHCC will “significantly advance interoperability” among joint sites that require shared tools to provide care effectively.

Lovell FHCC is the only fully integrated health care system jointly run by the VA and DOD.

DOD has completed this installation of the Federal EHR, which it refers to as MHS GENESIS, in all military hospitals and clinics worldwide.

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ODNI’s 2024 Intelligence Community Threat Assessment Highlights AI-related Risks
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ODNI’s 2024 Intelligence Community Threat Assessment Highlights AI-related Risks

Computer viruses created from artificial intelligence and the surge in commercial spyware were some of the highlights of this year’s threat assessment released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community also emphasized China as the biggest cyber threat to IT networks of the U.S. government, critical infrastructure and private sector, ODNI reported Monday.

According to the collective insights from intelligence experts, a minimum of 73 countries acquired commercial spyware to target journalists and dissidents between 2011 and 2013.

The report also warned of potential U.S. election interference from China, Russia and Iran by means of generative AI.

ODNI published an unclassified version of the document, which provides information on digital authoritarianism, chemical and biological weapon proliferation and transnational organized criminals resorting to cyber attacks such as ransomware.

The agency will be represented by Michaela Mesquite, acting group chief for augmenting intelligence using machines, at the Potomac Officers Club’s 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 21. The event is still open for registration.

POC - 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit
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