Arlington, VA –
Today, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) highlighted the progress that the Department of Defense has made in scaling new digital tools at the speed of relevance since the introduction of the Open DAGIR construct in May 2024, and previewed the next Open DAGIR line of effort focused on AI infrastructure. Open DAGIR, or Open Data and Applications Government-owned Interoperable Repositories, is CDAO’s approach for leveraging a competitive acquisition process to rapidly procure and integrate best-in-class technology from industry to meet specific DoD requirements and ensure interoperability.
"Over the last six months, CDAO has created a modular, interoperable ecosystem of digital capabilities for different use cases at the DoD,” said Chief Digital and AI Officer Dr. Radha Plumb. “From enterprise analytics to strategic command and control to the tactical edge, the Open DAGIR approach is paying dividends in getting our warfighters the digital capabilities they need. Our next line of effort focused on investing in AI infrastructure will help accelerate the Department’s ability to leverage frontier AI capabilities in months instead of years, translating to continued and enduring advantage for our military.”
In the last six months, the CDAO has applied the Open DAGIR construct in three lines of effort:
Strategic Command and Control (C2):
CDAO established clear onboarding pathways for third-party vendor and government capabilities onto the government-owned Maven Smart Systems data environment. This includes a more accessible development environment, designed to lower the barrier to entry for new and innovative vendors that want to prototype their apps with the DoD.
Enterprise Analytics:
The DoD is transitioning from a single award contract for its enterprise data analytics platform of record, Advana, to a multiple award IDIQ contract that will be open to a wide range of potential vendors. CDAO has also invested in the DevSecOps pipeline to more rapidly push updates and increase throughput from a wider variety of developers.
Edge Data Integration Services:
Most recently, CDAO announced that it is scaling a tactical edge data integration services solution that will enable warfighters to share data during C2 without having to relay it through a central headquarters. Included in this acquisition is the development of an app store and a common development environment, which will allow end users to access a variety of apps—including those developed by third parties and developed in the common development environment.
Moving forward, CDAO and its newly formed AI Rapid Capabilities Cell will apply the Open DAGIR construct towards AI infrastructure to encourage speed, flexibility, interoperability, and competition. CDAO will host an industry day in the spring focused on accelerating the Department's partnerships with AI infrastructure providers and lead AI labs. More details on this industry day will be forthcoming and shared on ai.mil.
In an effort to increase transparency and data-based decision-making, CDAO will also be issuing an initial draft of metrics to track progress to actioning Open DAGIR principles next week; these metrics will continue to evolve in order to help platform teams and industry understand where to focus to have the largest impact.
Learn more about the Open DAGIR approach by visiting https://www.ai.mil/Initiatives/Open-DAGIR/
About the CDAO
CDAO is the Department of Defense’s (DoD) organization responsible for the acceleration of the department’s adoption of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has the mission of providing enterprise-level infrastructure and services, as well as scaling proven secure digital and AI-enabled solutions for enterprise and joint use cases. CDAO leverages relevant dual-use commercial technologies and novel operating models to enable all DoD organizations to quickly develop, test, integrate and deliver secure, data, analytic, and AI capabilities to achieve their missions.