CDAO, DIU Launch New Effort Focused on Accelerating DOD Adoption of AI CapabilitiesReadout of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Daniel Shapiro's Visit to Jordan, Bahrain[...]

Today, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) announced the formation of a new AI Rapid Capabilities Cell (AI RCC) focused on accelerating DoD adoption of next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) such as Generative AI (GenAI). The AI RCC will be managed by the CDAO and will be executed in partnership with DIU. The AI RCC will lead efforts to accelerate and scale the deployment of cutting-edge AI-enabled tools, to include Frontier models, across the Department of Defense.

This announcement comes as the CDAO sunsets Task Force Lima, the Department's initiative focused on harnessing the power of GenAI. The AI RCC will build upon the findings, and focus on executing pilots in the primary use case areas identified by Task Force Lima. These areas are:

• Warfighting: Command and Control (C2) and decision support, operational planning, logistics, weapons development and testing, uncrewed and autonomous systems, intelligence activities, information operations, and cyber operations
• Enterprise management: financial systems, human resources, enterprise logistics and supply chain, health care information management, legal analysis and compliance, procurement processes, and software development and cyber security

The executive summary of Task Force Lima's findings can be found on CDAO's website.

"The US commercial sector is at the cutting edge when it comes to artificial intelligence, and digital solutions," said Chief Digital and AI Officer Dr. Radha Plumb. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach to accelerate development and deployment of these tools for the Department of Defense to responsibly harness the tremendous promise of AI in everything from financial management to logistics to operations planning to autonomous systems."

"DIU's role is bringing the very best commercial tech to bear to meet critical warfighter problems with the focus, speed, and scale required to meet the strategic imperative," said Doug Beck, Director of DIU. "Our partnership with CDAO, and collaboration on the Rapid Capabilities Cell, will allow us to shape critical AI initiatives in a way that incorporates the standards, policy, and requirements from the beginning. The result will help us scale the tech faster and more reliably, and will also help change the way the Department thinks about software development and delivery tempo for the future."

The AI RCC will initially be resourced with approximately $100M in FY 2024 and FY 2025 for pilot efforts that apply generative AI models to priority use cases, and investments in foundational AI infrastructure and tools. In partnership with other parts of the Department, industry, and academia, CDAO and DIU will take a rapid experimentation-based approach to the AI pilots, consistent with the CDAO and DIU's Open DAGIR construct and use all available agile acquisition approaches.

Additional details about planned pilots, infrastructure investments, and other AI-focused efforts can be found in the linked fact sheet.

About the CDAO and DIU 

CDAO is the Department of Defense's (DoD) organization responsible for the acceleration of the department's adoption of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has the mission of providing enterprise-level infrastructure and services, as well as scaling proven secure digital and AI-enabled solutions for enterprise and joint use cases. CDAO leverages relevant dual-use commercial technologies and novel operating models to enable all DoD organizations to quickly develop, test, integrate and deliver secure, data, analytic, and AI capabilities to achieve their missions. 

DIU is the DoD's organization responsible for leading the adoption of commercial technologies to solve warfighter problems for strategic impact at speed and scale, in support of the National Defense Strategy. It serves as the principal liaison between the DoD and the national security innovation base, and with its companies and investors, and coordinates and advises efforts within the DoD, and with interagency and international partners, on matters related to the development, procurement, and fielding of commercially derived technology.