U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a 2023 Wash100 awardee, said an artificial intelligence-assisted, cloud-based database designed to capture all-source intelligence data is expected to reach initial operational capability in the spring of 2024, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
The Machine-Assisted Analytic Rapid-Repository System — a.ka. MARS — will replace the Military Intelligence Integrated Database and is expected to achieve full operational capability in 2025, according to Berrier.
The MARS platform “takes everything that’s in MIDB, but infuses it with the tools that we have available today from all of those sources. And so not only a satellite image and a description, but you will have a map database infused with lots of different open source data points that will tell you what’s going on there — information that we can buy, other information that we can steal,” Berrier said during a fireside chat with the Center for Strategic and International Security.
“And it gives analysts through alarms and tippers ways to analyze what’s happening and techniques that we haven’t used before,” he added.
The DIA director also touched upon the importance of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the agency’s mission and shared his insights on the role of DIA in strategic competition with China and significance of intelligence sharing with allies and other partners.