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New Alliance Seeks to Drive Open Innovation, Responsible AI Development
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New Alliance Seeks to Drive Open Innovation, Responsible AI Development

IBM and Meta have launched a new international alliance focused on advancing open science and innovation and driving safe and responsible artificial intelligence development.

The AI Alliance will bring together companies, academic institutions, scientists and other innovators to build and deploy tools, benchmarks and evaluation standards and other resources that facilitate the responsible development and use of AI technologies, IBM said Tuesday.

The alliance plans to advance the ecosystem of open foundation models with diverse modalities; promote an AI hardware accelerator ecosystem by strengthening the adoption of essential software technology; support global AI skill-building and exploratory research; and unveil initiatives that foster open AI development.

The international group will also create a governing board and technical oversight committee focused on developing project standards and guidelines.

“IBM is proud to partner with like-minded organizations through the AI Alliance to ensure this open ecosystem drives an innovative AI agenda underpinned by safety, accountability and scientific rigor,” said IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna.

The AI Alliance’s other founding members and collaborators include:

  • Agency for Science, Technology and Research or A*STAR
  • Aitomatic
  • AMD
  • Anyscale
  • Cerebras
  • CERN
  • Cleveland Clinic
  • Cornell University
  • Dartmouth
  • Dell Technologies
  • Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
  • ETH Zurich
  • Fast.ai
  • Fenrir
  • FPT Software
  • Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Hugging Face
  • Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
  • Imperial College London
  • Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
  • Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
  • Intel
  • Keio University
  • LangChain
  • LlamaIndex
  • Linux Foundation
  • Mass Open Cloud Alliance, operated by Boston University and Harvard
  • Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence
  • MLCommons
  • NASA
  • National Science Foundation
  • New York University
  • NumFOCUS
  • OpenTeams
  • Oracle
  • Partnership on AI
  • Quansight
  • Red Hat
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Roadzen
  • Sakana AI
  • SB Intuitions
  • ServiceNow
  • Silo AI
  • Simons Foundation
  • Sony Group
  • Stability AI
  • Together AI
  • TU Munich
  • UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • The University of Notre Dame
  • The University of Texas at Austin
  • The University of Tokyo
  • Yale University
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Army Requests Information on New Enterprise Data Analytics Platform Development
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Army Requests Information on New Enterprise Data Analytics Platform Development

The U.S. Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems has begun seeking information on the development of a new enterprise-wide data analytics platform that will ingest, analyze and manage data across the service branch.

Information gathered during the market research will be used to inform the Army’s acquisition approach for the Army Data Platform 2.0, which will replace the Vantage data analytics and decision-making platform, according to a notice posted Thursday on SAM.gov.

ADP 2.0 will enable Army decision-makers to create, manage and publish data products and give them access to enterprise data ecosystem mesh services to ensure data governance and interoperability.

The Army will continue maintaining the current Army Vantage, powered by Palantir-built software, to enable capability availability and assist in a seamless transition to ADP 2.0.

Responses to the request for information are due Jan. 24.

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PSC Offers Comments on OMB’s Draft AI Governance, Risk Management Guidance
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PSC Offers Comments on OMB’s Draft AI Governance, Risk Management Guidance

The Professional Services Council has commented on the Office of Management and Budget’s draft memo on how federal agencies should adopt, use and manage artificial intelligence technologies.

PSC offered to facilitate future engagement among OMB stakeholders to help them understand AI’s potential opportunities and limitations and provided comments on specific questions related to the draft memo, titled “Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence,” the national trade association said Monday.

The draft guidance outlines a set of requirements for strengthening the U.S. government’s AI governance and risk management practices and policies, including designating a chief AI officer at each agency.

OMB also directs agencies to establish an AI governance body, apply context-specific risk mitigation measures for generative AI and build an AI use case inventory to foster innovation.

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Sterling Thomas Appointed GAO Chief Scientist
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Sterling Thomas Appointed GAO Chief Scientist

Sterling Thomas, a research scientist with decades of experience across the government, industry and academia, has taken on the chief scientist role at the Government Accountability Office.

In his new role, Thomas will oversee the GAO’s science and technology work, including the programs managed by the science, technology assessment and analytics team, which assesses the applications of emerging technologies in government missions, the GAO said Monday.

“Sterling brings a wealth of knowledge and experience across these fields that will add great value to our accelerating body of science and technology related work,” said Gene Dodaro, comptroller general of the U.S. and head of the GAO.

Before joining the GAO, Thomas was chief scientist and deputy chief technology officer at nonprofit research corporation Noblis, where he also served as principal investigator overseeing research funded by the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

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DOD Inspector General’s Office Reveals Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities in Controlled Unclassified Information Contracting; Robert Storch Quoted
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DOD Inspector General’s Office Reveals Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities in Controlled Unclassified Information Contracting; Robert Storch Quoted

The Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General released a special report that includes 24 open recommendations to address cybersecurity weaknesses in controlled unclassified information, or CUI, management by the agency’s contractors.

DOD on Monday published a document summarizing OIG’s five audits from 2018 to 2023, which found inadequate implementation of multifactor authentication among DOD contractors, as well as weak passwords.

Some companies hired by the agency to process, store and share CUI did not undergo proper vetting to check their compliance with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s cybersecurity requirements, according to the new report. Others also lacked electronic authentication tools to prevent data breaches.

“Protecting sensitive government information in cyberspace is crucial,” Inspector General Robert Storch commented. “For that reason, strengthening the DoD’s cybersecurity capabilities has been among our Top DoD Management and Performance Challenges for more than a decade, and it will continue to be one of our top oversight priorities.”

Peraton’s Andrew Hallman on Intelligence Channels, Need to Maintain Intel Collection Capabilities
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Peraton’s Andrew Hallman on Intelligence Channels, Need to Maintain Intel Collection Capabilities

Andrew Hallman, vice president of national security strategy and integration at Peraton and a previous Wash100 awardee, recently spoke about the importance of intelligence channels in light of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“Intelligence channels have proven to be an effective means of negotiation because they tend to offer enduring, lasting trusted channels that tend to be more resilient to shifting political winds,” he said in an interview on CNN.

Peraton's Andrew Hallman on Intelligence Channels, Need to Maintain Intel Collection Capabilities

He also shared his thoughts on the role of the CIA and the credibility that William Burns, the agency’s director and two-time Wash100 Award recipient, brings as a professional diplomat in light of the ongoing war between Israel and the militant group.

Hallman, former principal executive at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the U.S. Intelligence Community will face increasing pressure from the current administration and Congress to develop independent intelligence streams as well as help Israelis learn from the conflict, retraining them and offering assistance to help them restore their intelligence capabilities.

According to Hallman, the Intelligence Community should keep its eye on long-term strategic threats from China and be cognizant of the need to maintain its intelligence collection capabilities.

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OMB Provides Guidance for Agencies to Meet 2024 FISMA Reporting Goals
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OMB Provides Guidance for Agencies to Meet 2024 FISMA Reporting Goals

The Office of Management and Budget issued guidelines to help federal agencies comply with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, also known as FISMA, for fiscal year 2024.

The guidance includes requirements and deadlines for submitting FISMA reports to OMB and the Department of Homeland Security, OMB announced Monday.

The Budget Office emphasized the importance of FY 2024 in laying the foundation to meet the Biden administration’s goals under the executive order on improving national cybersecurity. Objectives such as zero trust implementation measurement in 2024 are also critical in achieving OMB’s pledge to transition the government toward zero trust principles.

One of the recommendations in the new memo is the identification and inventory of Internet of Things devices, prioritizing those that are critical to agencies operations. OMB also noted that the Federal Chief Information Security Officer Council will create a working group tasked to develop best practices for IoT and operational technology security.

Under FISMA, all agencies are required to submit their annual Chief Information Officer and Senior Agency Official for Privacy metrics as well as annual reports from their respective inspectors general by Oct. 31, 2024.

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Guidehouse to Support DAF Workforce Development Under New Contract; John Saad Quoted
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Guidehouse to Support DAF Workforce Development Under New Contract; John Saad Quoted

Guidehouse has booked a two-year task order to help the assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management and comptroller, or SAF/FM, carry out workforce development activities.

Under the contract, Guidehouse will provide a variety of services to assist the SAF/FM Directorate of Workforce Management and Executive Services with workforce transformation initiatives, the firm announced from Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.

“We are extremely honored to work with SAF/FM to deliver people-driven support to their members and continue further engagement of the financial management workforce,” said John Saad, partner and defense and security segment lead at Guidehouse.

He said the company is “excited to have the opportunity to help shape the future” of the Department of the Air Force’s financial management workforce, which is made up of 13,000 military and civilian employees globally.

Guidehouse’s contracting responsibilities will support strategic planning and workforce analysis, training program development, performance management and data analytics as well as strategic communications and public outreach for the directorate, which oversees an array of strategic and tactical level workforce management and development resources for the DAF.

This task order follows two contract wins for Guidehouse in November, both of which came from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Under one of these contracts, Guidehouse is expected to provide organizational assessments, strategic planning, change management and data analytics support for the agency’s human resources division. The second award focuses on information technology operations, processes and systems.

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Frank Kendall Says DAF Is Working to Ensure Responsible AI Use
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Frank Kendall Says DAF Is Working to Ensure Responsible AI Use

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the Department of the Air Force is committed to building and deploying artificial intelligence to help address security challenges posed by adversaries and is working to find out how to hold people accountable when it comes to AI applications.

“The way we should approach is to figure out how to apply the laws of armed conflict to the applications of AI. Who do we hold responsible for the performance of that AI and what do we require institutions to do before we field these kinds of capabilities and use them operationally,” Kendall, a four-time Wash100 awardee, said during a panel discussion at a forum on Saturday.

He discussed the need for the government to thoroughly understand how AI works and find creative ways to help industry develop AI applications and ensure the ethical and reliable use of AI systems by warfighters.

The secretary emphasized that time is a key parameter on the battlefield.

“The AI will be able to do much more complicated things much more accurately and much faster than human beings can. If the human is in the loop, you will lose. You can have human supervision and watch over what the AI is doing, but if you try to intervene you are going to lose,” Kendall told the audience.

“The difference in how long it takes a person to do something and how long it takes the AI to do something is the key difference,” he added.

POC - 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit

Register here to attend the Potomac Officers Club’s 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 21 and hear federal leaders and industry experts discuss the latest developments in the field.

DOE Solicits Industry Comments on Proposed Interpretive Guidance for FEOC Description
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DOE Solicits Industry Comments on Proposed Interpretive Guidance for FEOC Description

The Department of Energy is requesting industry input on its proposed guidance on identifying which foreign entities qualify as foreign entities of concern, or FEOCs, under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which aims to limit the participation of FEOCs within the U.S. electronic vehicle battery production sector.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law defines FEOCs as entities “owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a government of a foreign country that is a covered nation,” DOE said Friday.

In its proposed interpretive guidance, the department clarifies the term FEOC by providing separate interpretations of key terms in the legislation’s FEOC definition.

The interpretations relate to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s battery materials processing and battery manufacturing and recycling grant programs that prioritize projects with non-FEOC-based supply chains.

DOE also collaborated with the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to ensure that the proposed guidance is relevant to the implementation of the clean vehicle tax credit provision in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The comment period is open until Jan. 3.

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