John Sherman, chief information officer of the Intelligence Community, has said the inclusion of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform in the IC Information Technology Enterprise reflects his office’s efforts to search for alternative technologies in support of the community’s requirements, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.
ICITE is a program that seeks to facilitate IT consolidation and modernization across IC.
“One of the things I’ve got clear guidance on is we will always be looking for new technologies, new industry capabilities on cloud computing,†Sherman said in an interview on the station’s Ask the CIO program.
“One of the priorities we have in the IC is to move to artificial intelligence and machine learning, and this cloud computing foundation is absolutely critical in getting us there,†he added.
Sherman said he believes the community’s adoption of Microsoft Azure in addition to the National Security Agency’s GovCloud and Amazon Web Services’ cloud platform would help IC speed up the decision-making process in support of counterterrorism efforts and other operations.
Microsoft and IC signed a six-year agreement in May to expand the use of the company’s cloud platform and other technology offerings by 17 agencies within the community.