The Department of Defense’s Office of the Chief of Staff for Digital and Artificial Intelligence today launched a new rapid field effort to spearhead a series of new initiatives aimed at accelerating the deployment of advanced artificial intelligence capabilities across the Department of Defense.
CDAO’s Artificial Intelligence Rapid Capability Cell (AI RCC) will partner with the Defense Innovation Division to run four initial frontier AI pilots that apply generative AI models to both combat and enterprise management use cases.
This pilot effort is part of the AI RCC’s broader efforts to leverage emerging technologies and deliver advanced AI capabilities to warfighters and key enablers in the Department of Defense.
The ministry’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, Dr. Radha Puram, also holds a Ph.D. The economics professor announced the launch of a new initiative today, stressing that it is essential for the Department of Defense to take control of AI.
“The United States and the American private sector are on the cutting edge, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence,” Plumb said. “At the same time, it is important to recognize that the adoption of AI by adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is accelerating and poses significant risks to national security.”
In response, he said the Pentagon is taking an “all-hands-on-deck approach” to ensure the U.S. continues to lead the way in AI adoption.
“America’s decisive and enduring advantage lies in the innovation inherent in the commercial sector and the department’s ability to incorporate it into its critical missions,” Plumb said.
Doug Beck, director of the Defense Innovation Unit, said in a statement that CDAO and DIU’s partnership on the AI RCC “allows us to shape important AI efforts with standards, policies, and requirements built in from the beginning. “It will be.”
“The results will help us scale technology more quickly and reliably, and will also help change the way departments think about future software development and delivery tempo,” he said.
The AI RCC accelerates and scales the AI tools it generates across 15 combat and enterprise management use cases, from command and control and decision support to software development and cybersecurity.
These focus areas are based on the findings of Task Force Lima, which Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks established in August 2023 to develop, evaluate, recommend, and monitor generative AI capabilities across the department. This task force will be formally abolished with the establishment of the AI RCC.
Frontier AI pilots will tackle four of these use cases (two combat-focused and two enterprise management-focused) to demonstrate the impact of generative AI in defense applications .
As part of the pilot, CDAO will partner with combatant commands and Department of Defense officials to conduct phased experiments using capabilities under development.
This will be the first major effort to deploy cutting-edge AI to support warfighter needs in real-time.
In addition to the Frontier AI pilot, the AI RCC will build on the underlying infrastructure needed to accelerate AI adoption across the sector, including establishing a digital “sandbox” to enable AI testing and experimentation on government networks. Oversees major investments in
The AI RCC is also investing in rapid user-centered experimentation with CDAO’s Global Information Dominance Experiment Series, allowing it to test front-line AI models across combat forces and provide real-time feedback to developers. Masu.
In addition, Mr. Plumb today announced that CDAO will award $40 million in Small Business Innovation Research Funds to non-traditional small businesses for innovative generative AI solutions.
For more information, read our AI Capability Adoption news release here and the Artificial Intelligence Fast Capability Cell factsheet here.
