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DOD’s new AI chief tells House committee department will ‘enable, speed and scale’ adoption of data and artificial intelligence
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Summary
Dr. Matty, the Department of Defense chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, told the House Armed Services subcommittee the department is pursuing an "enable, speed and scale" approach to expand AI use across operations while stressing responsible AI, workforce development and infrastructure access.
Dr. Matty, the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, told the House Armed Services subcommittee that the Department of Defense is accelerating adoption of data, analytics and artificial intelligence through a three-part approach: enable, speed and scale.
The nut graf: Matty said the Defense Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office will set standards, deliver reusable tools, and expand access to compute and authoritative data so AI capabilities can be fielded quickly and at echelon across the services — while maintaining safeguards for data, ethics and legal compliance.
Matty told lawmakers the CDAO combines congressionally required roles as chief data officer and chief AI officer and executes those authorities through policy, resourcing, acquisition and capability delivery. "We enable the DOD's adoption of data analytics and AI by establishing standards, best practices, and reusable tools to deliver capabilities directly to the DOD users," he said.
On infrastructure, Matty said the office is "streamlining the authority to operate process and by expanding access to modern AI ready infrastructure like high performance compute." He described experiments such as the Global Information Dominance Experiment (GUIDE), where developers, researchers and operators test capabilities on live networks to accelerate transition into operational use: "There is no better way to develop these types of technologies and capabilities than by adopting the agile approach," he said.
Matty emphasized workforce: "Our workforce really is what will determine success and failure for AI enabled capabilities," and said CDAO is working to upskill personnel and integrate outside talent from academia, federally funded research and development centers, national labs and industry.
On responsible AI, Matty said the effort is "multifaceted" and spans technical design, ethics, legal review and policy. He described international coordination through an AI partners council of 16 nations and flagged planned forums to discuss legal and policy ramifications for operational use. "Responsible AI has to be multifaceted and cover all those aspects," he said.
Matty also addressed operational use in contested or degraded communication environments, telling Representative Crank the department treats AI as a spectrum of cloud and edge/autonomy capabilities so systems can support warfighters when network connectivity is limited.
The CDAO testimony pledged continued transparency with Congress and emphasized that priority lines of effort include increasing access to authoritative data, reducing administrative barriers to fielding software and building architectures that are secure and interoperable across echelons.
