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US, Australia, UK Leaders Announce Progress in Past 12 Months Under AUKUS Defense Alliance
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US, Australia, UK Leaders Announce Progress in Past 12 Months Under AUKUS Defense Alliance

The leaders of the U.S., Australia and the U.K. have issued a joint statement on their countries’ progress in advancing collaboration on defense and security capabilities under a trilateral security partnership called AUKUS.

The leaders said Friday the three countries have made progress in helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines through the AUKUS alliance, which was established in September 2021.

“Today, as we mark the one-year anniversary of AUKUS, we reaffirm our commitment to that critical endeavor and to peace and security in the Indo-Pacific,” the joint statement reads.

Under AUKUS, the three countries also reported advancements in strengthening trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, cyber, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence and autonomy, undersea capabilities and quantum technologies.

The leaders announced the countries’ continued commitment to promoting technology and information sharing, accelerating defense innovation enterprises and fostering integration of their supply chains and industrial bases to further support their progress in tech capability areas.

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DoD Announces Award of Defense Manufacturing, Community Infrastructure Grants; William LaPlante Quoted
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DoD Announces Award of Defense Manufacturing, Community Infrastructure Grants; William LaPlante Quoted

The Department of Defense has awarded 19 grants valued at approximately $90 million combined under the Defense Community Infrastructure Pilot Program and six grants worth about $30 million in total through the Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program.

DOD said Friday the Defense Community Infrastructure Pilot Program is a competitive effort that allows states and communities to carry out facility construction and other infrastructure enhancements to improve resiliency of military installations.

One of the grant recipients is the Arizona Department of Transportation, which will make improvements along the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation Canal Bridge and U.S. Route 95 to improve the transportation of service personnel and equipment to and from Yuma Proving Ground.

The Massachusetts Development Finance Agency received a $4.6 million grant to build a new fire station in support of Fort Devens Reserve Forces Training Area.

“The Defense Community Infrastructure Pilot Program is critical in delivering public infrastructure and services that not only benefit our local installations, but help to support our service members, their families, and the Department’s mission while building key partnerships and resiliency at the state and local level,” said William LaPlante, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner.

The Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program helps strengthen the country’s national security innovation base by investing in research and development, small businesses and workforce development.

Six consortia each received a grant worth about $5 million, including Supply Chain of Recovered Elements Consortium led by SAE Government Technologies and Microelectronics Precision Rapid Innovation and Scaling Manufacturing Network Consortium led by the University of Texas at Austin.

“The Department needs to implement a whole-of-nation manufacturing strategy by collaborating with public, private, and academic partners,” LaPlante said.

“These Defense Manufacturing Consortia will do just that by working to accelerate the development of critical minerals, help to build up the nation’s shipbuilding workforce, enhance cybersecurity efforts, increase energy storage technologies, and accelerate microelectronic and semiconductor processes – all national security priorities,” he added.

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GSA Details Process for New FBI HQ Campus Site Selection; Nina Albert Quoted
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GSA Details Process for New FBI HQ Campus Site Selection; Nina Albert Quoted

The General Services Administration (GSA) and the FBI launched the process for selecting a location for the bureau’s new suburban headquarters in the National Capital Region.

The 2016 project planning process identified Greenbelt and Landover in Maryland and Springfield, Virginia, as the three potential sites for the new FBI building and GSA said Friday the administrator should pick one from these three sites pursuant to the Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2022.

Nina Albert, commissioner of the Public Buildings Service at GSA, said the two agencies are continuing to advance efforts to meet the key milestones set by Congress for the FBI HQ campus and look forward to implementing a fair and transparent process for the site selection.

GSA said its site selection process is based on public real estate acquisition best practices and that it expects to make a selection in the coming months.

The site selection criteria include FBI mission requirements, transportation access, site development flexibility, cost and promotion of sustainable siting and equity.

The FBI Headquarters Consolidation project seeks to combine all FBI offices at the J. Edgar Hoover building and other locations across the Washington D.C. area into the new campus.

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NetImpact JV Lands USDA Contract for IT Services; Stephanie Wilson Quoted
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NetImpact JV Lands USDA Contract for IT Services; Stephanie Wilson Quoted

A mentor-protege joint venture between business management consulting firms NetImpact Strategies and Attain has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for technical assistance and program execution support.

The contract expects At-Impact, the JV, to collaboratively offer information technology services such as digital transformation and testing automation to the USDA’s Governance Applications Management Branch and Governance Services Division of the Client Experience Center, NetImpact said Friday.

“Our Emotionally Intelligent, Technically Exceptional (EQTE) team is ready to optimize CEC’s IT operations and services for a modern service management that stays ahead of USDA’s dynamic needs,” said Stephanie Wilson, chief operating officer of NetImpact.

By helping the CEC, NetImpact and Attain will be, in turn, reaching nearly 140,000 clients in over 118,000 different offices throughout the U.S. The companies will be comprehensively maintaining and updating the CEC’s Information Technology Service Management tool arsenal, which is responsible for responding to over a million requests every year.

Skilled in utilizing the architectures of eAuthentication/SSO, Salesforce, SailPoint, Pinyon and ServiceNow, among others, the At-Impact team will carry out implementation and maintenance, custom workflows and application management and analysis-based betterment of routine processes.

During the project, NetImpact plans to draw on experience gained in partnerships with a slew of federal agencies, demonstrating their platform-forward, mission-centered design strategies.

DOE, Biden Administration Open Applications for Hydrogen Hubs Through $7B Program; Jennifer Granholm Quoted
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DOE, Biden Administration Open Applications for Hydrogen Hubs Through $7B Program; Jennifer Granholm Quoted

Submissions are now being welcomed for a $7 billion initiative by the U.S. Department of Energy to encourage the establishment of regional hubs for the production of hydrogen.

The endeavor, which comes via President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, seeks to uplift American communities that have been ill-served by economic disadvantage and lack of access to clean energy sources, the DoE said Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm elucidated that the effort will consult scientists, engineers, community organizers and business leaders in order to execute a long-lasting, innovative hydrogen development strategy.

Granholm additionally stated that she believes, if carried out successfully, the program will “lift our economy, protect the planet, and improve our health.”

The larger $8 billion hub endeavor that the $7 billion project is a part of marks one of the most extensive investments in the department’s history. It is aimed to bolster job availabilities in the areas the hubs are opened while making steps toward instituting a clean energy economy, strengthening energy security and prioritizing environmental health.

With their new offering, the DoE is also attempting to reverse and restore some of the prior damages done to marginalized populations that have suffered as a result of legacy energy-gathering processes and approaches.

Conceptual outlines to apply for the hydrogen hub effort are due on November 7, while full applications must be submitted no later than April 7, 2023. Anywhere from six to 10 hubs will be chosen to move forward into the actualization phase, though further, expanded funding may be available in the future.

Outstanding applicants must demonstrate a commitment to community and labor engagement, America’s workforce, diversity and inclusion, as well as align with President Biden’s overarching objective to divert 40 percent of certain federal income to underserved communities.

Hydrogen, which is able to be made using wind, solar and nuclear resources or with methane through an emission-mitigating carbon process, is seen as an instrumental element of the President’s mission to reach a carbon-free grid by 2035 and net-zero emissions in the next three decades.

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Arati Prabhakar Confirmed to Lead OSTP
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Arati Prabhakar Confirmed to Lead OSTP

The Senate confirmed Arati Prabhakar, former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a previous Wash100 awardee, as director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy in a 56-40 vote Thursday.

Prabhakar, who was nominated to the post in June to replace Eric Landers, will concurrently lead OSTP and serve as chief adviser to President Biden on science and technology matters, the White House said Thursday.

She led DARPA from July 2012 to January 2017 and was the first woman to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology as director, a role she held from 1993 to 1997.

Her private sector career included leadership positions at Raychem, Interval Research and U.S. Venture Partners.

The federal R&D veteran most recently served as CEO of Actuate, a nonprofit organization she established to conduct managed programs that focus on developing options to address societal issues, according to her LinkedIn account.

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Brookings Institution Issues Analysis of Federal AI Spending
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Brookings Institution Issues Analysis of Federal AI Spending

A report released by the Brookings Institution shows that the federal government is still in the experimental phase when it comes to artificial intelligence procurement given the large number of small contracts focused on research and development.

Data show that NAICS 54, which covers professional, scientific and technical services including research and development, emerged as the most frequently used North American Industry Classification System code for AI-related contracts, Brookings said Thursday.

According to the report, over 95 percent of AI-labeled contract spending are under NAICS 54.

The study revealed that the Department of Defense appears to serve as an incubator for AI-related projects given its spending on the technology. Researchers found that DOD accounts for 53 percent of AI-related contracts within the NAICS 54 code.

The report also called on the government to enhance the authority of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office to coordinate federal interagency AI activities pursuant to the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 to help bring structure to the fragmented federal AI market.

Gregory Dawson, clinical professor at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business, co-authored the report with Kevin Desouza, nonresident senior fellow for governance studies at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, and James Denford, professor within the management department at Royal Military College of Canada.

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NASA Enters Climate Risk Modeling Partnership With First Street Foundation
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NASA Enters Climate Risk Modeling Partnership With First Street Foundation

The First Street Foundation and two NASA research laboratories have teamed up to perform risk modeling work to quantitatively evaluate the impacts of climate events on the economy and raise awareness about natural hazards.

NASA said Monday its Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and university-affiliated Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City will collaborate with the nonprofit in efforts to update climate models and risk measurement tools.

The agency expects to gain technical insight into the modeling approaches of First Street and adjusted risk data on specific properties.

“NASA Earth observations and model output are already publicly available, but this agreement with First Street enables us to work together to integrate our trusted observations, predictions and scientific expertise into improved products that will be freely available,” said Stephanie Schollaert Uz, applied sciences manager for Goddard’s Earth Sciences Division.

Ed Kearns, chief data officer of First Street, said the partnership offers an opportunity for the nonprofit to communicate with the government sector about climate change matters.

The agency presented at the Sept. 9 National Space Council meeting a concept and a video of the Earth Information Center being planned to give the public knowledge of how the planet is changing and support decision-making to address the problem.

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GAO Identifies Data Environment as Emerging Battlefield in National Security
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GAO Identifies Data Environment as Emerging Battlefield in National Security

U.S. adversaries and competitors are exploiting social media, information technology and other elements of the information environment to undermine the country’s national security capabilities, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The government watchdog agency conducted a study on how the Department of Defense uses the information environment and its strategies to enhance cognitive security.

GAO data came from questionnaires given to 25 DOD agencies, interviews with department officials and subject matter experts, and reviews of 35 policy and strategy documents from the department and other federal agencies.

Results showed that the DOD’s most important deficiencies in protecting the information environment are in personnel, training, funding, organization and new technologies.

Respondents identified artificial intelligence and machine learning, bots, quantum computing, social media platforms as emerging tools that could be used as either a shield or a threat to the DoD’s missions.

The office recognized the Pentagon’s efforts to refine the concept of information in defense operations. Aside from its ongoing revision of doctrine publications, the DOD must boost organization and training in defense against social engineering, the report noted.

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NSA, CISA Expose Malicious Actors’ Game Plan to Compromise Operational Tech, Industrial Control Systems
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NSA, CISA Expose Malicious Actors’ Game Plan to Compromise Operational Tech, Industrial Control Systems

The National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have released an advisory outlining the steps cyberthreat actors use to plan and carry out compromises against operational technology and industrial control system assets.

NSA said Thursday the cybersecurity advisory builds on guidance previously issued by the two agencies to mitigate OT exposure and stop malicious actors from targeting ICS.

“Owners and operators of these systems need to fully understand the threats coming from state-sponsored actors and cybercriminals to best defend against them,” said Michael Dransfield, control systems defense expert at NSA.

According to the advisory, the steps malicious actors follow to compromise ICS and OT assets are establishing the intended effect and selecting a target; collecting intelligence about the target system; developing techniques and tools to navigate and manipulate the system; gaining initial access to the system; and executing techniques and tools to create the intended effect.

“We’re exposing the malicious actors’ playbook so that we can harden our systems and prevent their next attempt,” added Dransfield.

The document also offers recommendations to help OT and ICS operators and owners to defend their systems from such threat actors.

These include limiting exposure of system information, identifying and securing remote access points, restricting tools and scripts and conducting regular security audits.

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