The Defense Department has issued a framework that will guide the Pentagon’s IT transformation and through four strategic initiatives increase the agency’s advantage in the digital environment.
Unveiled July 15, the Digital Modernization Strategy includes IT-related modernization goals and objectives. It reflects DOD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy’s vision for creating a better, more secure IT architecture resilient enough to withstand persistent cyber threat.
The policy highlights four modernization pillars: cloud; artificial intelligence; command, control and communications, and cybersecurity.
First, an enterprise cloud will be developed to facilitate information sharing across the entire DOD. Powered by AI and machine learning, the enterprise cloud will also deliver next-generation applications to the warfighters.
For the AI part to work, the Pentagon first had to stand up the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, which was established last year. The center "will be used by all the services, which will be the way in which we start to create new AI solutions at scale – that can be used across the department," Deasy said in a release.
The C3 strategic initiative refers to how DOD communicates, Deasy said, to “ensure that we can get the end results from our cloud, from our AI solutions out to the tactical edge, out to the warfighter.”
Finally, the Pentagon’s IT must be protected by defensive and offensive cyber capability, Deasy said, and the department overall must be resilient to attackers.
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