The Department of Defense is working with unnamed commercial companies to build an integration layer where combatant commands can access data feeds for their artificial intelligence algorithms, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, director of the Joint AI Center, told Breaking Defense that the envisioned DOD-first environment would make the development of AI technologies easier for faster deployment across the force.
Groen, who was part of a National Defense Industry Association 2021 Expeditionary Warfare Conference panel, explained that such a layer would remove the need for COCOMs to look for sources of relevant information by themselves and curate each data stream separately.
“We need the ability to make application generation — the development of apps — very easy and quick by providing the background resources and link that you need to generate an application,” explained the general, also a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient.
He declined to reveal the exact funding the three-year layer development effort needed. The layer is part of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Initiative, which aims at helping COCOMs streamline their decision-making processes through AI technologies.