BY LARA SELIGMAN
People who shape their ideas close the U.S. armed forces based on Hollywood movies powerfulness acquire the impression that cutting-edge technology scientific discipline is criterion inward the fighting forces. In fact, the contrary is true. At nuclear sites around the country, technicians soundless purpose floppy disks. Only this summertime is the U.S. Navy expected to upgrade from Windows XP, an operating organisation long since scrubbed from domicile computers. The novel F-35 stealth fighter jet, touted every bit the most sophisticated inward the world, was showtime conceived of inward the 1990s.
So when the Defense Department announced in conclusion twelvemonth that it wanted to partner amongst Silicon Valley to construct a massive cloud storage unit of measurement where it could securely warehouse in addition to categorize the surreptitious information it collects from tidings agencies in addition to the military, some experts scoffed. Companies such every bit Amazon in addition to Google are defined yesteryear an ethos of agility in addition to innovation. The Pentagon, yesteryear contrast, is known to move clunky in addition to run a endangerment averse. Just getting a contract through the department’s famously byzantine procurement procedure would require a sort of bureaucratic wrangling that a Jeff Bezos or a Tim Cook would discover abhorrent.
It has also forced the Pentagon to human face a sobering truth: If it hopes to maintain U.S. armed forces dominance, it must brand such partnerships work.
Yet the Defense Department’s attempt to advance the cloud projection is making slow progress. The grueling procedure has revealed all the ways inward which the ii sides inward the partnership are fundamentally incompatible. But it has also forced the Pentagon to human face a sobering truth: If it hopes to maintain U.S. armed forces dominance, it must brand such partnerships work. The imperative is outflow upward amongst the agency technological project design has shifted over the yesteryear few decades from government-funded labs around the province to commercial companies. It’s also tied to some broader changes inward the world, including the ascent of mainland People's Republic of China every bit a swell power.
The fact that the U.S. authorities pioneered many of the swell technological breakthroughs of the 20th century has acquire mutual knowledge. The meshing began decades agone every bit a reckoner networking projection inward the offices of the Advanced Research Projects Agency—essentially a Defense Department incubator. The satellite navigation systems that instantly characteristic on most smartphones were hatched inward the same place.
But starting inward the 1990s, every bit armed forces budgets declined in addition to investment inward tech companies soared, the somebody sector gained a huge payoff inward innovation. Most tech firms receive got focused on producing consumer goods. But some of the technology scientific discipline they’ve developed, if applied to the military, could transform the agency state of war is waged.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, for one, appears to move good aware of this fact (though his service on the board of the failed tech fellowship Theranos didn’t just burnish his credentials inward Silicon Valley). The Pentagon’s latest National Defense Strategy identifies viii technologies the armed forces wants to leverage for its ain advantage, including advanced computing, large information analytics, artificial intelligence, in addition to robotics. “Success does non popular off to the province that develops a novel technology scientific discipline showtime but rather to the ane that amend integrates it in addition to to a greater extent than swiftly adapts its agency of fighting,” Mattis said when the strategy was unveiled inward January.
What stood out close his listing was the fact that the commercial sector is largely driving vi of the viii technologies on it, according to Robert Work, who served every bit the deputy defense forcefulness secretarial assistant until in conclusion year. Work was ane of the Pentagon’s principal proponents of partnerships amongst the commercial sector. More than most of his colleagues, he understood the challenges of bridging the civilization gap betwixt the ii sides.
To attempt to practise so, 3 years agone Work helped ready the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, or DIUx, a sort of Pentagon outpost inward Silicon Valley that was meant to serve every bit a liaison betwixt the Defense Department in addition to the tech world. (In August, DIUx shortened its nurture to DIU, on the grounds that it was no longer experimental.) Though it scored some successes early on—the Pentagon expanded the computer program to Boston in addition to Austin—it has started to lose steam since the divergence of its managing director, Raj Shah, this year. Still, Work believes that the Pentagon has already learned some valuable lessons from the experience.
Last year, when he was soundless inward office, Work launched Project Maven, ane of the Pentagon’s deepest forays to engagement into the high-tech realm. The computer program makes purpose of AI to analyze huge amounts of drone data—a painstaking procedure traditionally handled yesteryear humans. Project Maven aims to eventually supplant in addition to improve on much of that work, identifying threats, tracking enemy movements, in addition to detecting anomalies that the human center may overlook. “I stay convinced that nosotros require to practise much more, in addition to displace much faster, across DoD to accept payoff of recent in addition to hereafter advances inward these critical areas,” Work wrote inward an Apr 2017 memo.
Project Maven is already operating inward at to the lowest degree v surreptitious locations inward the Middle East in addition to Africa. But it has striking some snags. This April, to a greater extent than than 3,000 employees at Google signed a alphabetic quality protesting the company’s interest inward the projection on the grounds that “Google should non move inward the line of piece of occupation organisation of war.” The fellowship responded yesteryear vowing non to renew the partnership when it expires adjacent year. Still, the Pentagon’s investment inward AI in addition to Project Maven continues every bit other tech companies discover these lucrative contracts difficult to resist.
Building on Maven’s success would require the Defense Department to consolidate its data, including the information it gets from surveillance drones in addition to from the armed forces tidings community, in addition to label it inward a machine-readable format. To that end, inward July the Pentagon launched an enormous tender for a cloud storage contract, code-named JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure). In both the Pentagon in addition to Silicon Valley, JEDI’s success—or failure—is beingness watched every bit a show instance for whether the ii cultures tin cooperate.
“The route to AI begins amongst a lot of banal, irksome steps that audio similar putting inward a telephone organisation in addition to archiving in addition to databasing, but that is the operate nosotros receive got to do.”
Should it succeed, the computer program volition offering pregnant advantages for both the authorities in addition to the commercial sector. The contract is estimated to move worth $10 billion, making it a huge prize for fifty-fifty the biggest firms. The fellowship that wins JEDI, a two-year contract amongst an selection for to a greater extent than operate thereafter, would also acquire a leg upward inward securing other Pentagon deals—including filling the department’s farther needs for cloud storage. As for the Defense Department, the projection would allow for faster in addition to deeper analysis of its tidings data. “The route to AI begins amongst a lot of banal, irksome steps that audio similar putting inward a telephone organisation in addition to archiving in addition to databasing, but that is the operate nosotros receive got to do,” said Will Roper, the U.S. Air Force’s summit acquisition official in addition to formerly caput of the Pentagon’s secretive Strategic Capabilities Office.
Critical every bit it is, the first has been bogged downwards yesteryear the Defense Department’s antiquated acquisition system. It took officials until belatedly July to unloose the terminal asking for proposals, in addition to it’s non clear when the contract volition move awarded. During a May 31 press conference, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White declined to commit to a timeline. “We are working on it, but it’s of import that nosotros don’t rush toward failure,” she said. “We also desire to accept inward all of the dissimilar stakeholders in addition to visit how nosotros displace best forward.”
The Pentagon wants to avoid a province of affairs where ane or to a greater extent than of the bidders protests the results of the contracting process, which is ane argue it’s moving carefully—and slowly. Most analysts assume that Amazon is the front-runner—in component because it is amidst the world’s largest cloud services providers in addition to already industrial plant amongst the U.S. tidings community on other projects. But a coalition of tech companies from Microsoft to Red Hat is reportedly coordinating efforts to maintain the JEDI contract from going solely to Amazon. Google was considering making a bid every bit well, though the conclusion to describe out of Project Maven may complicate the issue. “Amazon sort of feels similar the Lebron James of this field,” said Daniel Goure, the senior vice president of the Lexington Institute, a populace policy retrieve tank that focuses on security-related issues.
The tender procedure was supposed to move the piece of cake part. Once the Pentagon chooses a contractor for JEDI, the winner volition receive got to run across the government’s many regulatory requirements, especially inward the surface area of cybersecurity. Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s summit acquisition official until 2017, said the commercial basis does non fully sympathise these obscure demands. “I would just urge a scrap of caution,” he said. “I retrieve people rushing headlong into embracing some of these commercial firms—they require to move a piddling to a greater extent than careful.”
As a cautionary example, Kendall pointed to the tidings community’s attempt to migrate to the commercial cloud. Since 2014, the CIA in addition to the sixteen other U.S. tidings agencies receive got been working to shift top-secret in addition to classified information onto Amazon’s cloud. Though some CIA officials tout the displace every bit transformational, Kendall said implementation has been “slower than expected” due to cybersecurity concerns in addition to the Pentagon’s stringent regulatory process.
To move sure, whenever the Pentagon contracts amongst exterior companies, the procedure tends to move painstaking in addition to time-consuming. The production of the F-35, Lockheed Martin’s latest fighter jet, underscores that point. Originally planned to move deployed starting inward 2010, the stealth fighter suffered years of delays, toll overruns, in addition to technical challenges. The Air Force only declared the aircraft create for deployment inward 2016.
Given the rapid technological advances beingness made yesteryear potential U.S. adversaries, especially China, however, the U.S. armed forces can’t afford similar delays inward JEDI in addition to other high-tech partnerships. Today, 3 of the world’s v most valuable tech start-ups are Chinese, in addition to companies such every bit Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, in addition to Huawei are narrowing the query in addition to evolution spending gap amongst their U.S. competitors, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Unlike Washington, moreover, authoritarian powers receive got an piece of cake fourth dimension working amongst local tech firms: They only tell them what to do. That’s ane of the reasons that Eric Schmidt, the onetime chairman of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) in addition to the chairman of the Defense Innovation Board, lately warned that mainland People's Republic of China was poised to surpass the USA inward the AI race yesteryear 2025.
“We are instantly inward a large technological contest amongst swell powers,” Work said. “We cannot assume that our technological superiority is a given. We are going to receive got to acquire by for it.”
This article originally appeared inward the Fall 2018 number of Foreign Policy magazine.
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