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DoD’s AI center setting itself up to be a more agile buyer, use of OTAs

The Pentagon’s entity for injecting artificial intelligence into the military is considering adopting a new acquisition model that has been championed by the Defense Department for its speed over the past few years, but also concerns government watchdogs for its lack of accountability.

The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) may use a consortium of companies and academic institutions to procure technologies and services needed to make AI a ubiquitous force within the military. The model pays a consortium manager to oversee a group of companies that pay a small fee to be part of the club.

The advantage of the consortium is it allows JAIC to exercise other transaction authority (OTA), a contracting method that has gained considerable steam since Congress expanded its use for the military.  OTAs let DoD skip federal acquisition regulations to research, tests, prototype and even produce weapons at a faster speed.  OTAs also put an emphasis on partnering with companies that DoD does not usually do business with.

“Up to now, JAIC has primarily worked through traditional defense contractors and traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contracts,” Chris Cornillie, federal market analyst at Bloomberg Government, told Federal News Network. “Given some of the challenges that it’s facing with COVID, and the need to start to scale its production to the Pentagon’s requirements, it’s considering a change in its business model.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/09/dods-ai-center-setting-itself-up-to-be-a-more-agile-buyer-use-of-otas/

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How the government is using AI to help procure trillions of dollars of products and services

The United States government is one of the largest buyers in the world, if not the largest, spending over $4.1 trillion annually overall with hundreds of billions spent on technology.

As part of all this, the General Services Administration (GSA), a key agency in the US federal government is responsible for managing many of the operations of the federal system including many aspects of procurement.

Increasingly the GSA is leveraging AI and machine learning to help optimize, manage, and advance procurement functions. AI and ML are providing key ability to optimize procurement processes, provide visibility into key metrics, and generate insights and forecasts to procurement trends. In this article, Keith Nakasone, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Acquisition, Office IT Category at the GSA shares insights on how AI is impacting federal government procurement as a follow-up to a recent podcast interview on this topic.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2020/08/16/how-the-us-government-is-using-ai-to-help-procure-trillions-of-dollars-of-products-and-services-an-interview-with-keith-nakasone-gsa/#5e8607f370ac

 

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DoD’s AI center seeks own acquisition authorities

Having its own mechanism for purchasing artificial intelligence will increase speed, according to the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center’s chief.

In the two years since its conception, the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center has built out its staff from four people to 175 and now commands an annual budget of approximately $240 million.

And while the JAIC has been able to meet the Defense Department’s mission demands so far, its chief — Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan — believes that the JAIC will need its own acquisition authorities to meet future technological demands.

“What I need honestly is our own acquisition authorities in the JAIC, I don’t have them right now,” Shanahan said Thursday, speaking at a virtual event held by AFCEA. “If I project another year or two forward, we are going to have to come up with different models.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2020/05/defense-departments-ai-center-seeks-own-acquisition-authorities/165657/

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Getting critical technologies into DoD applications

In today’s changing geopolitical environment, concerns in Washington that the United States is falling behind in critical emerging technologies are commonplace.

China and Russia — both identified as great-power competitors of the United States by the current administration — are forging forward with critical investments in technologies ranging from quantum computing to artificial intelligence.

But the United States is still by far the most innovative nation on earth. America’s strengths run from its fundamental pull to brilliant minds the world over through its relatively open immigration system to the unparalleled resources of its universities. The free-market structure of the economy, vibrant venture capital ecosystems, world-class universities, and government support of R&D combine to form the most innovative ecosystem in the world.

However, when it comes to defense and positioning for future competition with Beijing and Moscow, the government has not figured out how to tap this flow of innovation emanating from the civilian sector.

Keep reading this article at: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/getting-critical-technologies-us-defense-applications-119541

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Acquisition leans into automation

Automation is gaining traction in federal acquisition.

“When we met with senior leaders a few weeks ago, they had a list of processes they wanted automated by that week,” Lesley Field, deputy administrator for federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget, said at a panel discussion at the 2019 Presidential Rank Awards Leadership Summit on Dec. 17.  She said the acquisition workforce is enthusiastic about developing robotics process automation tools within the government.

Soraya Correa, chief acquisition officer at the Department of Homeland Security, noted that automation technologies offer a number of advantages, including limiting problems that can stem from data bias.

“With automation, we can get to a fairer process,” he said. “Right now, we engage more data bias because we’re limited by what we can do as long as we’re telling industry what we’re willing to do and where we’re going to go look for this information.”

Keep reading this article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/12/24/acquisition-automation.aspx

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