STATEMENT BY DANA DEASY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER BEFORE THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES ON “Department of Defense’s Artificial Intelligence Structure Investments and Applications” December 11 2018 NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL RELEASED BY THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE Good afternoon Ms Chairwoman Ranking Member and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee I thank you for the opportunity to spend a few minutes on the establishment of our Joint Artificial Intelligence Center JAIC an effort that is of great importance to the Department of Defense and to our country in a technology area that is profoundly significant to industry academia and society writ large I am Dana Deasy the Department of Defense DoD Chief Information Officer CIO I am the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense for information management IT cybersecurity communications positioning navigation and timing PNT spectrum management and senior leadership and nuclear command control and communications NC3 matters I am also responsible for the success of the Department’s new Joint AI Center Several of these responsibilities are clearly unique to the DoD and my imperative as the CIO in managing this broad and diverse set of functions is to ensure that the Department has the information and communications technology capabilities needed to support the broad set of Department missions This includes supporting our deployed forces cyber mission forces as well as those providing mission and business support functions Artificial intelligence AI is rapidly changing a wide range of businesses and industries It is also poised to change the character of the future battlefield and the pace of threats and capabilities we must face The 2018 National Defense Strategy NDS foresees that ongoing advances in AI “will change society and ultimately the character of war ” Structurally we know AI has the potential to be an enabling layer across nearly everything -- that means countless applications in industry and everyday life and it means the opportunity to positively transform every corner of the Department from innovative concepts that change the way we fight to improvements in the way we maintain our equipment perceive our environment train our men and women defend our networks operate our back office provide humanitarian aid and respond to disasters and more The adoption of AI in defense enables us to better support and protect American servicemembers safeguard our citizens defend our allies and improve the affordability effectiveness and speed of our operations Other nations particularly China and Russia are making significant investments in AI for military purposes These investments threaten to erode our technological and operational advantages and destabilize the free and open international order The Department of Defense together with our allies and partners must adopt AI to maintain its strategic position prevail on future battlefields and safeguard this order Under the NDS the Department will accelerate the adoption of AI to expand our military advantages and create a force fit for our time AI will enhance operational effectiveness improve readiness and increase efficiency in the general business practices of the Department As we move out we will make concerted effort to move AI technologies in a direction that improves our odds of security peace and stability in the long run by promoting vigorous dialogue and multilateral cooperation on the safe and ethical use of AI for national security and establishing new norms for responsible behavior consistent with the law and our nation’s values This AI transformation will ensure that we maintain the ability to execute the Department’s vital mission of protecting the security of our nation deterring war and preserving peace 2 Last June Deputy Secretary Shanahan directed my office to establish the Joint AI Center This is a new unit whose goal is to accelerate the delivery of AI-enabled capabilities scale the Department-wide impact of AI and synchronize the Department’s AI activities In parallel the Department submitted its first AI Strategy to Congress an annex to the NDS that captures the integrated set of decisions we are making now to harness AI to advance our security and prosperity The founding of JAIC also dovetailed Section 238 of the FY19 National Defense Authorization Act which directed a joint approach to coordinate the efforts of the Department to develop mature and transition AI technologies into operational use Today I will provide you with an update on the establishment of JAIC I will touch on how we are partnering with Research Engineering R E the role of the Military Services the Department’s initial focus areas for AI delivery and how JAIC is supporting whole-of-government efforts in AI JAIC will operate across the full AI application lifecycle emphasizing near-term execution experimentation and operational adoption to meet current needs JAIC’s work will complement the efforts of R E which are focused on foundational research longer-term technology creation and innovative concepts You will hear JAIC communicate a clear and consistent message about transforming DoD through AI This refers to the transformation that happens when you field technology on operationally-relevant timelines enable men and women to experiment with it based on their own creativity and ultimately generate new ways of working that solve our most critical challenges and expand our military strength As we move to rapidly incorporate AI those men and women in America’s military will remain our enduring source of strength we will use AI-enabled information tools and systems to empower not replace those who serve To derive maximum value from AI application throughout the Department JAIC will operate across an end-to-end lifecycle of problem identification prototyping integration scaling and support JAIC will partner with the Services and other components across the Joint Force to systematically identify prioritize and select new AI mission initiatives and then stand up crossfunctional teams to rapidly execute a sequence of use cases that demonstrate value and spur momentum This includes engaging with leading commercial and academic partners for prototypes fostering new forms of experimentation and employing standardized processes with respect to areas such as data management testing and evaluation and cybersecurity Our approach has been directly informed by the Department’s AI pathfinder activity Project Maven which has been successful in identifying and beginning to address key challenges with integrating AI into operations and has put in place an initial set of data tools and infrastructure for AI delivery as well as initial templates for acquisition testing and evaluation operational assessment and more JAIC’s early projects serve a dual purpose to deliver new AI-enabled capabilities to end users as well as to help incrementally develop the common foundation that is essential for scaling AI’s impact across DoD This foundation includes shared data reusable tools frameworks libraries and standards and AI cloud and edge services JAIC will work with teams throughout the Department to ensure that they can leverage this foundation to accelerate their progress in a manner that aligns with DoD enterprise cloud adoption Let me underscore that point our enterprise approach for AI and enterprise cloud adoption via the DoD-wide Cloud Strategy are mutually reinforcing mutually dependent undertakings Finally JAIC will provide ongoing 3 support to the efforts of the Services and other organizations to ensure continuous improvement assessment and sustainment of AI systems and solutions across the enterprise The AI capability delivery efforts that will go through this lifecycle will primarily fall into two categories National Mission Initiatives NMIs and Component Mission Initiatives CMIs As outlined in the DoD AI Strategy a National Mission Initiative NMI is a pressing operational or business reform joint challenge typically identified from the National Defense Strategy’s key operational problems or nominated by a mission owner which can only be solved by multiservice innovation coordination and the parallel introduction of new technology and new operating concepts NMIs are typically driven by JAIC and are executed by cross‐functional teams that are comprised of both JAIC personnel as well as subject matter experts from across the Department on a rotational basis Execution of these projects will be essential for putting in place our initial common foundation The second project category is a Component Mission Initiative CMI which is a componentlevel challenge that can be solved through AI JAIC will work closely with individual components on CMIs to help identify shape and accelerate their component-specific AI deployments through usage of common foundational tools libraries cloud infrastructure etc application of best practices partnerships with industry and academia etc The component will be responsible for identifying and implementing the organizational structure required to accomplish its project in coordination and partnership with JAIC We are already forming strong partnerships with the Services and key components for example the Army established a new AI Task Force that is working closely with JAIC on predictive maintenance we are actively engaged in an effort to apply data-driven insights to equipment availability at U S Special Operations Command and in the U S Air Force in partnership with Defense Innovation Unit DIU and we are partnering with U S Cyber Command to shape a new mission initiative together These early efforts each make use of common approaches to data tools libraries architectures development approaches and more Additionally we are already seeing encouraging signs that the Services are increasing their levels of investment in AIrelated capabilities this is exactly what we want to see happen JAIC’s focus on near-term AI implementation and adoption complements efforts within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering R E at places such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DARPA that are focused on the next wave of AI research and longer-term technology creation When it comes to research for the future versus the ability to apply it now at scale DoD needs the best of both and they feed one another R E will feed JAIC with updates on leading-edge AI technologies and concepts and JAIC will provide R E insights from operational fielding user feedback and data Dr Griffin Dr Porter and I have a shared vision on this enterprise approach JAIC is already working with DIU DARPA and the Strategic Capabilities Office to improve integration and enhance unity of effort on current and future AI projects Last week I gave the opening remarks at the DoD AI Industry Day an event put together through a partnership among JAIC Project Maven and the Army Research Lab with strong participation from several other DoD components as well as attendance from a few HASC staff 4 members I shared with the nearly 400 companies in attendance that we had achieved a significant milestone JAIC is now up and running and open for business Examples of early mission initiatives include the following • Perception – Improve the speed completeness and accuracy of Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance Processing Exploitation and Dissemination Project Maven’s efforts will be included here • Predictive Maintenance PMx – Provide computational tools to decision makers to help them better forecast diagnose and manage maintenance issues to increase availability improve operational effectiveness and ensure safety at reduced cost • Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief HA DR – Reduce the time associated with search and discovery resource allocation decisions and executing rescue and relief operations to save lives and livelihood during disaster operations • Cyber Sensemaking – Detect and deter advanced adversarial cyber actors who infiltrate and operate within the DoD Information Network DoDIN to increase DoDIN security safeguard sensitive information and allow warfighters and engineers to focus on strategic analysis and response We picked these initiatives to deliver mission impact at speed demonstrate the proof of concept for the JAIC operational model enable rapid learning and iterative process refinement and build out our library of reusable tools while validating our enterprise cloud architecture As did Project Maven these efforts will benefit us by growing more AI expertise that will return to the Services and components to help accelerate their own AI projects For the predictive preventive maintenance NMI we are starting with Army and Army Special Operations helicopters H-60s There is sufficient data available to train algorithms there will be well-defined return on investment criteria and this project helps address Secretary Mattis’ direction to the Services to improve their maintenance readiness rates We anticipate moving to other airframes and vehicles once the H-60 project is well underway working closely with DIU to scale the promising results they have demonstrated using AI for predictive maintenance on other Air Force and Army platforms For the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief HA DR NMI we are already applying lessons learned and reusable tools from Project Maven to field AI capabilities in support of events such as hurricanes and wildfires disasters in which DoD plays a supporting role One of the most important benefits of this NMI is that it is an inspiring societally-beneficial life-saving mission that is not only whole-of-government but whole-of-society It brings in interagency state and local governments non-governmental organizations allied and partner nations and more It offers a unique opportunity to combine DoD efforts with industry and academia in a new type of public-private endeavor to operationalize AI to solve our most challenging problems Doing this at scale to address disasters on an integrated basis creates the potential to both save lives and livelihood as well as advance common tools lessons and partnerships for the benefit of many DoD missions 5 While its primary focus is delivery initiatives such as these JAIC has an important role in synchronizing DoD AI activities This avoids duplication and excess cost fosters sharing of lessons and establishes a new enterprise approach for translating AI into decisions and impact at scale across the Joint Force Under my CIO authorities and as laid out in the JAIC establishment memo JAIC will coordinate all DoD AI-related projects above $15 million This does not mean that JAIC will control the execution of these projects or the funding for Service- and componentlevel AI initiatives It does mean that we will start to ensure for example that they begin to leverage common tools and libraries manage data using best practices reflect a common governance framework adhere to rigorous testing and evaluation methodologies and comply with architectural principles and standards that enable scale Over time when properly resourced JAIC will assume a greater role with regard to component AI programs JAIC will be a key resource for whole-of-government efforts in AI particularly as we explore as a Nation the opportunities and challenges associated not merely with fundamental AI research but also with translating the technology into decisions and impact in operations To underscore our focus on ethics humanitarian considerations and both short-term and long-term AI safety JAIC is working closely today with the Defense Innovation Board DIB to foster a broad dialogue and provide input into the development of AI principles for defense We are offering our perspective on the crucial research and development associated with operationalizing AI today in our engagements with the important work of the National Science and Technology Council Select Committee on AI And I want to emphasize the importance of our partnerships with Congress in all areas but with a particular focus on AI The establishment of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 is one key example of this partnership and an encouraging step forward The ingredients for JAIC to ultimately be successful include enterprise cloud adoption worldclass AI talent particularly in areas that are scarce within DoD today such as data engineering data science machine learning and product management a workforce that is taking steps to become broadly AI-ready strong partnerships with the Services Combatant Commands and other key components a tight two-way integration with the critical work of R E and energetic combined problem-solving enabled by bonds of trust with AI leaders in industry and academia The final ingredient for success is culture specifically the need for a cultural shift to become a more data-centric computer science-literate experimentation-driven organization that is comfortable deriving advantage from risk These are the table stakes in AI Our legacy culture and processes are particularly apparent as we launch what can only be described as a startup within the Department of Defense As we do so we are incorporating lessons learned from other Department activities that resembled startups in how they responded to urgent compelling requirements across the Department – such as the ISR Task Force Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization and Project Maven The central challenge laid down by the NDS is preserving and expanding our military advantage In the era of AI our ability to do this depends on our ability to integrate the technology on operationally-relevant timelines and adapt new ways of working 6 The Joint AI Center will play a critical role in this transformation through the activities I have described Delivering capability at speed to address key missions establishing a common foundation for scaling AI’s impact across the Joint Force including shared data reusable tools frameworks and standards and cloud and edge services facilitating AI plans policies and standards including those that ensure we lead the world in the development of AI solutions that are robust ethical and secure and attracting and cultivating expertise in the form of a worldclass AI team and an AI-ready workforce The speed and scale of the change required is daunting but we must embrace it if we are to reap the benefits of continued security and prosperity for the future Thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon I look forward to continuing to work with Congress in this critical area in an ongoing dialogue on our progress in AI adoption and the ways in which JAIC is being used to accelerate that progress I look forward to your questions 7 Dana Deasy Chief Information Officer Mr Dana Deasy is the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer DoD CIO He is the primary advisor to the Secretary of Defense for matters of information management information technology and information assurance as well as non-intelligence space systems critical satellite communications navigation and timing programs spectrum and telecommunications Mr Deasy previously held several private sector senior leadership positions most recently as Global Chief Information Officer CIO of JPMorgan Chase There he was responsible for the firm’s technology systems and infrastructure across all of the firm’s businesses worldwide Mr Deasy managed a budget of more than $9 billion and over 40 000 technologists supporting JPMorgan Chase’s Retail Wholesale and Asset Management businesses He has more than 35 years of experience leading and delivering large scale IT strategies and projects to include Chief Information Officer and Group Vice President at BP Earlier in his career Mr Deasy served as CIO for General Motors North America Tyco International and Siemens Americas He also held several senior leadership positions at Rockwell Space Systems Division including as Director of Information Management for Rockwell’s space shuttle program He was inducted into the CIO Hall of Fame in 2012 and the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals Hall of Fame in 2013 and also named Transformational CIO in 2017 8