The minimum viable capabilities of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office for the Department of Defense’s Integrated Coupled All-Domain Command and Control Initiative are operational. The office is currently preparing to attract more companies.
CDAO will spend the next three to six months developing a set of requirements that will enable more companies to contribute to expanding the data integration layer.
“We’ve been working on this with key industry partners, primarily Palantir and Anduril. The technology we’ve built is there and available. That’s why we call it a capability. Then we need to build a set of requirements that allows other industry partners to participate,” CDAO Secretary Craig Martel told the House Armed Services Cyber, Information Technology, and Innovation Subcommittee on Friday. This was stated at the public hearing of the association.
More broadly, CJADC2 aims to connect all military assets and enable faster decision-making using data, cloud, artificial intelligence, and more.
When Martel became CDAO director in 2022, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks ordered the agency to launch the Global Information Domination Experiment, also known as GIDE.
Last year, the CDAO office hosted several GIDE events. The main goal was to provide a joint data integration layer that would allow INDOPACOM, CENTCOM, NORTHCOM, their components, and international partners to access and exchange data. The final iteration of the experiment yielded minimal viable functionality for CJADC2.
“We’ve been building a prototype in the sense that the hardware supports the flow of data across the combat force so that they have a unified view of what’s going on in the world,” Martell said. Told.
“We do these guided exercises every 90 days. It’s about what the combatant commander needs to see, and what all the components under the combatant commander need to see. This is done as an important learning exercise through Wargaming to understand what needs to be done and how data needs to be exchanged.” “There will need to be a flow of information from the swivel chair, PowerPoint, and email to digital data as it travels internally,” he added.
The Department of Defense is vague about the applications and regions in which the minimum viable capability is currently being used.
During the hearing, Mr. Martell was also asked about the possibility that his office would have direct authority over military services and the development of the CJADC2 solution.
“I’m not a fan of that. And I’m not a fan of the draconian authority that’s out there. In general, let me say that the center needs to provide oversight, policy, and best practices. The edge is theirs. “We know the problems best. I think it’s dangerous to solve problems in the center and push them to the edges. That would create a one-size-fits-all solution,” Martel said.
He said permissions are needed on the interface to allow the appropriate data to exit the service. For example, the Army-led Project Convergence and the Navy’s Project Overmatch aim to find solutions for data flow.
“What we’ve done is prioritize technology over policy. When you allow data to flow, you force the right questions to be asked. And when you do that, the demand for data to flow will also increase. And we… can say, “Well, that’s a policy issue that we can address right now,” Martell said.
“Change is not my strong opinion. That change comes from an a priori view or philosophical view of how the world should be, not by trying to implement it.”
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