Budget Account
0400D - Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide
Budget Activity
5 - System development and demonstration
Description
The Chief Digital Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) is a critical initiative led by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to strengthen and integrate data, artificial intelligence, and digital solutions in support of the National Defense Strategy and the National Defense Authorization Act. The specific objectives of this program include leading and overseeing the DoD’s strategy development and policy formulation for data, analytics, and AI; breaking down barriers to data and AI adoption within DoD institutional processes; creating enabling digital infrastructure and services that support Components’ development and deployment of data, analytics, AI, and digital-enabled solutions; selectively scaling proven digital and AI-enabled solutions focused on enterprise and joint use cases; surging digital services for rapid response to crises and emergent challenges. Additionally, the program aims to integrate the capabilities, personnel, resources, and governance of its constituent organizations while focusing on priority projects that align with CDAO’s mission. These projects include expanding the enterprise data repository, establishing a responsible AI ecosystem, executing the AI and Data Accelerator (ADA) initiative, and developing a Data, Analytics, and AI Adoption Strategy.
The FY 2024 funding supports the expansion of AI capabilities across the DoD enterprise to include enhanced data quality, data analytics, AI, and digital-enabled solutions in line with the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This growth will also aid in developing campaigning decision support tools for DoD's Dynamic Campaigning efforts, providing high-performance computing resources for AI test and evaluation, developing tools to continuously assess AI performance, creating AI interoperability standards, establishing AI research and development hubs, among other initiatives. The program's planned programs for FY 2023-2024 include enhancing Advanced Analytics (Advana) program to support Joint Safety Council for assessment of Services’ aviation mishap data supporting improvement in aviation safety. Additionally, it will continue to build on the Responsible AI eco-system to ensure ethical foundations of AI activities are reflected in every step of development processes. The CDAO will also work towards transforming Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) to a Digital TEMP through fully integrated Digital Engineering (DE) processes. These efforts collectively aim to accelerate the Department’s adoption of data, analytics, and AI to preserve decision advantage across the Joint Force.