Artificial Intelligence in the New National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a short article on 5G technology in the Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan for FY 2025. This week’s post turns to another aspect of the NDIS-IP that industry partners might find interesting – artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML).

The technology is mentioned multiple times in the NDIS-IP, illustrating the growing interest in it across the DOD. Here are the “Lines of Effort” that mention AI/ML and the ways they might leverage the technology.

Line of Effort 3.1: Strengthening the Australia/United Kingdom/United States Trilateral Security Partnership

A trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific region, Pillar II of this LOE focuses on delivering advanced warfighting capabilities, in addition to creating an enabling ecosystem that will facilitate deep industrial base cooperation and collaboration as well as support joint co-production and co-development. The initial technology focus of this LOE will be developing cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and additional undersea capabilities in a new roadmap and strategy for the Advanced Materials Critical Technology Area. The forthcoming strategy will define opportunities that meet current strategic and technical challenges in Advanced Materials related to the industrial base and supply chain. The strategy will also outline ways to increase cooperation with international allies, identify areas of mutual interest, support future standards development, and discover opportunities for collaboration.

Line of Effort 5.1: Replicator Initiative

Replicator is a DOD-wide program for accelerating the delivery of autonomous systems to warfighters at speed and scale. Since the goal of the Replicator initiative is to provide a repeatable process by which the DOD can quickly field innovative capabilities in large quantities, it will increase the use of enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence and human-machine interfaces. The objectives of using these technologies include increasing operational capability, technological superiority, and cost effectiveness.

Line of Effort 5.3: Flexible Acquisition Pathways

Defense organizations have been using new procurement avenues such as Other Transaction Agreements and Commercial Solutions Openings for several years now. Meeting the needs of this LOE means increasing the use of flexible acquisition and contracting processes to accelerate the delivery of needed capabilities. Efforts are currently underway to explore expanding on the software acquisition pathway to effectively acquire artificial intelligence capabilities. This could result in a separate budget line for AI/ML investment that will help industry understand what the DOD intends to spend on the technology.

Line of Effort 6.3: Advance the Data, Analytics, and AI Ecosystem

According to this LOE, the DOD wants to improve planning and sub-tier visibility in the defense industrial ecosystem by leveraging data, analytics, and AI. The ultimate objective is to use new and emerging analytic tools to improve decision-making.

Documents like the NDIS-IP are vague by nature, and contractors with security clearances will likely find more information in the document’s classified annex. The LOEs described above may not outline specific investments, but they do provide insight into the types of uses for AI/ML that interest the DOD. Industry partners should therefore keep their eyes open for comments about AI/ML in connection with the LOEs listed above. One area the NDIS-IP does not call out is AI/ML use for cybersecurity. This should nevertheless be a big area for investment in the future. More information may also become available in the forthcoming DIB Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan.