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NCSA to Deploy AI-Enabled Supercomputer Under NSF Award
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NCSA to Deploy AI-Enabled Supercomputer Under NSF Award

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications, which operates as a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has secured a $10 million award from the National Science Foundation to field an artificial intelligence-based supercomputer.

DeltaAI is projected to triple the AI-enabled computing capacity of NCSA and is expected to feature advanced web-based interfaces to support research efforts, the center said Wednesday.

“DeltaAI provides about double the performance of Delta and will be integrated into the same complex while also remaining separate projects,” said Bill Gropp, director of NCSA and principal investigator.

Gropp noted that DeltaAI will work to deliver capabilities for data science and simulation and supports NCSA’s mission to democratize high-performance computing.

Navy to Launch Next SBIR/SBTT Open Topics Opportunity
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Navy to Launch Next SBIR/SBTT Open Topics Opportunity

The U.S. Navy is set to kick off its next open topics opportunity under the Small Business Innovative Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs on July 13 to seek commercial technologies that meet specific mission-critical needs of the service branch, Federal News Network reported Friday.

Phase I will run for four months and focus on approaches to adapt commercial products and services to improve performance, modernize an existing capability or fill a capability gap.

The Navy will then make competitive selections based on Phase I results and the initial Phase II proposal and award contracts to transition technology from the development to the production phase.

A small business may submit one proposal for each topic under the open broad agency announcement.

Topics range from improving the launch and recovery of air, sea, surface and unmanned underwater vehicles from naval vessels to enhancing the mission capabilities of UUV systems.

The BAA is scheduled to close on Aug. 15.

Air Force Materiel Command Establishes New Software Engineering Collaboration Organization
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Air Force Materiel Command Establishes New Software Engineering Collaboration Organization

Air Force Materiel Command is establishing a new organization within the Air Force Sustainment Center to facilitate software engineering collaboration throughout the enterprise.

The AFSC Software Engineering directorate will consolidate the three existing software engineering groups located at each of the Air Logistics Complexes in an effort to eliminate redundancy, improve the effectiveness of processes and prioritize the delivery of software.

“This decision will align and integrate our software ecosystem capabilities to Air Force priorities and rapidly address the growth in volume and complexity of software-enabled DAF weapon systems,” said Lt. Gen. Shaun Morris, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

Gen. Duke Richardson, commander of AFMC, said the new organization aligns with the command’s strategic plan and will enable seamless integration of other software factories in the future.

Software engineering group employees will begin consolidating workload and resourcing decisions through the new organization.

“This realignment will enable us to spread the workload and allow for an increased flow of idea-sharing. Working together to solve complex issues will greatly accelerate our capacity to support the warfighter,” said Michael Jennings, senior technical leader at the AFSC Software Engineering directorate.

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DOD’s National Security Innovation Capital Obligates Available Funds for 2023; Tex Schenkkan Quoted
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DOD’s National Security Innovation Capital Obligates Available Funds for 2023; Tex Schenkkan Quoted

The National Security Innovation Capital within the Defense Innovation Unit met has met an incremental investment goal by allocating all of its available funds early in 2023, Federal News Network reported Friday.

NSIC Director Tex Schenkkan attributed the progress to the venture fund’s maturity and the increasing awareness among companies about the opportunity to secure investments from NSIC.

In 2021, the Department of Defense launched NSIC as a program that seeks to provide government funding to startups working on hardware technologies that could have national security and commercial applications.

NSIC has a portfolio of 17 companies and explores investments in the areas of communications, space, autonomy, sensors and power.

Schenkkan said future expansion areas might include biotech hardware or microelectronics.

“There are other areas that we would go more directly at where there’s need, and where we think we could have an impact,” he told FNN in an interview.

Schenkkan also commented that NSIC intends to fund startups from the country’s closest allies to support mutual interests when it comes to national security.

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Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Troy Black Named Senior Enlisted Advisor to Joint Staff Chair
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Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Troy Black Named Senior Enlisted Advisor to Joint Staff Chair

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Troy Black has been named senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, succeeding SEAC Ramon Colon-Lopez, who is set to retire on Nov. 3.

The Department of Defense said Friday that Black is currently assigned as the 19th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps and will soon serve at the SEAC Office in Washington, D.C.

Following the transfer of responsibility ceremony in November, Black will function as a direct tie between the Joint Staff chair and the enlisted force.

The official became the sergeant major of the Marine Corps in 2019 and has been with the service branch for 35 years.

Some of Black’s assignments were with 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) during Operation Bright Star and with 3d Bn, 7th Marines in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2010.

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ITI Releases Recommendations on National AI Strategy Development
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ITI Releases Recommendations on National AI Strategy Development

The Information Technology Industry Council has submitted a list of recommendations to the Office of Science and Technology Policy on developing a national strategy to advance the development and use of artificial intelligence technologies.

ITI said Friday it has recommended that the Biden administration ensure that the National AI Strategy incorporates a comprehensive approach to AI risk management to ensure that the development and deployment of the emerging technology do not jeopardize the public’s rights and safety.

“The administration can accomplish these goals by outlining a whole-of-government, risk-management based approach that considers all facets of the AI ecosystem, which will support AI innovation and promote economic growth,” Courtney Lang, vice president of policy at ITI.

In its comments submitted to OSTP, the global technology trade association also underscored the importance of implementing transparency measures to create accountable and trustworthy AI systems.

ITI also suggested that the White House address U.S. AI workforce gaps, collaborate with international partners to ensure that AI policy approaches are aligned and interoperable and allocate additional funding for AI research, development, testing and evaluation efforts.

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McKinsey Vet Giulia Siccardo Joins DOE
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McKinsey Vet Giulia Siccardo Joins DOE

Giulia Siccardo, formerly a partner at McKinsey & Company, has been appointed director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains.

She was among the nine DOE appointees announced on Friday who will work alongside U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to address the Biden administration’s national climate goals and energy infrastructure investments.

The office under Siccardo oversees department-backed programs meant to expand clean manufacturing and workforce capabilities throughout the country as well as engages with the private sector to sustain energy supply chains.

Siccardo previously led McKinsey’s green growth service line and its Frontier carbon removal partnership with several other companies under a $1 billion advance market commitment. The nearly 11-year company veteran has worked with business clients to help them implement low-carbon systems and value chain strategies.

Before McKinsey, she was Adobe Systems’ global sustainability coordinator focused on initiatives to procure clean energy and reduce data center emissions.

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Theodore Tanner Jr. Joins BigBear.ai as Chief Technology Officer
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Theodore Tanner Jr. Joins BigBear.ai as Chief Technology Officer

BigBear.ai has welcomed Theodore Tanner Jr. as its new chief technology officer.

The company newcomer will bring over three decades of experience across a variety of technology companies to the role, BigBear.ai announced from its Columbia, Maryland headquarters on Monday.

Mandy Long, CEO of BigBear.ai, highlighted Tanner’s long history of architecting AI technologies and managing related profit and loss. She said that his “extensive experience and expertise will be instrumental” to the organization’s work to provide its technology offerings to leaders in the public sector, manufacturing and warehouse operations and healthcare and life sciences.

“We are thrilled to welcome another seasoned leader to our executive team with Ted as our chief technology officer,” said Long.

Prior to joining BigBear.ai, Tanner was CTO and chief architect at Merative, formerly IBM Watson Health. Earlier in his career, he held architect roles at Microsoft and Apple.

Tanner has co-found multiple startups, including BeliefNetwork — one of the earliest machine learning and natural language processing as a service organizations on Amazon Web Services — and PokitDok Inc., which was later acquired by Change Health. 

Throughout his career, Tanner has received several patents related to blockchain, semantics, machine learning, signal processing and signal protection.

Currently, Tanner sits on the Industry Advisory Board for the University of South Carolina Computer Science Department and the Center for Intelligent Systems and Machine Learning at the University of Tennessee. He also serves as an industry member of the Association for Computing Machinery and is a published author.

Tanner said that BigBear.ai is “perfectly positioned” to deliver advanced AI algorithms and offerings to the intelligence community, Department of Defense and other federal entities as well as the private sector.

“I am excited to be working with this stellar team immediately bringing all of my platform, operating system and algorithm experience architecting groundbreaking AI solutions that will provide a higher form of decision intelligence for our customers as our industry transitions into the Age Of Artificial Intelligence.” said Tanner.

Theodore Tanner Jr. Joins BigBear.ai as Chief Technology Officer

BigBear.ai is sponsoring ExecutiveBiz’s Trusted AI and Autonomy Forum on September 12. To learn more and register to attend the event, which will bring together notable AI leaders to consider the implications of trust in AI, click here.

Leidos Selects Rancher Government Solutions as Member of Partner Network Program; Derrick Pledger Quoted
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Leidos Selects Rancher Government Solutions as Member of Partner Network Program; Derrick Pledger Quoted

Rancher Government Solutions has been chosen to join the Leidos Alliance Partner Network — a program designed to drive collaboration between Leidos and select organizations — as an Emerging Technology Partner.

The company’s entry into LAPN will allow the two organizations to tackle the application modernization, containers and Kubernetes-related security and operational needs of the public sector together, Leidos announced from its Reston, Virginia headquarters on Monday.

“Leidos is pleased to welcome Rancher Government Solutions to the Leidos Alliance Partner Network,” said Leidos Chief Information Officer Derrick Pledger. 

Pledger said that the companies have collaborated to develop edge-to-cloud architectures, execution patterns and secure Kubernetes methodologies, which he said will support rapid capability deployments and at-scale systems modernization within defense, intelligence and health agencies.

“We look forward to driving continuous modernization as well as helping our shared customers deliver mission outcomes on behalf of the nation,” he added.

Sima Shahin, regional vice president of federal system integrators at RGS, said that the organization is honored to be selected as part of the LAPN.

RGS’ inclusion in the program, she said, exemplifies its dedication to providing the U.S. government with secure, interoperable, open-source Kubernetes and cloud native technologies “in a validated way that has paid off.”

“Together with Leidos, RGS will continue to advance mission success through digital transformation and application modernization,” said Shahin.

RGS recently expanded the availability of its Kubernetes technologies with the release of Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2 and Rancher Manager on Amazon Web Services GovCloud, which offers public sector customers the option to immediately procure these tools.

The combined product is a push button, no-code deployment of Rancher tailored to meet the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Security Technical Implementation Guides for SUSE Linux Enterprise 15, Rancher Manager and RKE2.

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US Fulfills Commitment to Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty; William LaPlante Quoted
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US Fulfills Commitment to Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty; William LaPlante Quoted

The U.S. government has reported the destruction of the final munition in the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Hague, the Netherlands.

The milestone suggests that the U.S. met its commitment to the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline, the Department of Defense said Friday.

“We have a national security imperative and moral obligation to work toward eliminating the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction,” said William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment.

“This is the first time an international body has verified destruction of an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction — reinforcing the United States’ commitment to creating a world free of chemical weapons,” added LaPlante, a 2023 Wash100 awardee.

A joint venture of Bechtel and Parsons destroyed the final nerve agent-filled M55 rocket on Friday, July 7, at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

Christine Wormuth, secretary of the Army and a fellow 2023 Wash100 Award recipient, said the service is proud to have played a role in the U.S. chemical demilitarization program.

In June, Bechtel also completed the destruction of mustard agent-filled munitions at the U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado.

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