I dont think any member of the Police Department is moving with the speed force of action needed to get our fighters what they need. We established that the security is integer on rapidly embracing new technology,. From a platform centric combat to networkcentric. There doesnt seem to be any as formidable. This is not only to hear about your plans for the coming fiscal year but gorsuch understand the obstacles and barriers that you have encountered on a daytoday basis. As i have said before in this room. You can almost copy and paste the speech. We are going to kill the valley of death. The same people have the same conferences and then it does not get any better. Why it seems to this committee that the implementation of policy the directives on ai from your bosses we deftly made a little progress. The department of defenses achieve information officer. And the director of the Defense Systems agency and the commanders join forces for the primitive defense network. He is set to depart his position on april 15. Before we hear from the witnesses, i go to the Ranking Member for any comments you may have. Think you for your bipartisan focus on how we can make the department are innovative, agile and capable of adopting the latest Technology Software and working with the i hope we can explore not just what the apartment is doing but their perfectibility is needed. The reality is we have a challenge to bring this ecosystem up to the beat of modern information while operating in the area of rate power competition. Securing the industrial base. Accelerating the rollout of a robust Identity Credential is fundamental. The subcommittee had a very interesting hearing on Software Developer and software acquisition. A month ago, the Committee Held a hearing on exhilarated the base of innovation across the department. As we approach the end of this term, what would be helpful to me is a few, to her three very concrete recommendations. Particularly of what the committee can do or needs to do legislatively to help with making the department more innovative. It is more a matter of implementation. You see iraq for the committee to continue to do more legislatively and if so, what would those recommendations be question mark thank you mr. Chairman. Good morning chairman gallagher. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I am happy to be here with dr. Martel as well as general skinner. Lieutenant general skinner and i lead a team to secure and modernize the Department Information technology, enhanced were fighting command control, and cultivate a digital workforce. We look forward to sharing the progress on the departments Digital Transformation efforts. As we have seen in asia and europe, we must keep pace to support the nations work fighters and protect National Security capabilities. We are laser focused on zero trust implementation and we expanded eligibility for the Defense Industrial base Armed Security program. Cloud computing means remain central. I testify last or that the that that apartment was just influencing the cloud journey. Through the joint joint were fighting cloud capability, they have successfully awarded more than 37 task orders over the last year and within 50 more on the pipeline now. We also published clout contracting and reduced contracts brought across the department. In todays environment and as you are focused in on your hearing last wednesday, it is critical more than ever that we provide dod personnel with secure and resilient software when and where they need it. We need to recognize the urgency of this issue and we are working hard. More than 55 Software Factories are transferring the way that dod develops. This requires changes to or processes, policies, or courses and technology. Accelerating the ability to operate and reciprocity are key to this effort. Just as important is the ability to operate in any environment. That is critical to defend the nation. We understand increasing commercial demand. This will explore ways to address increasing federal and commercial demand without compromising National Security. 5g is critical to both dod and civilian industry. My office became responsible for this mission. Each of these missions would be impossible without the right people. This past year, we laid the foundations to enable dod to grow a dynamic and innovative workforce to succeed in the 21st century. To ensure that we work with industry and crude to retain the right people with the right skills for the right jobs. As people are our greatest resource, we understand the interaction of the departments ip instructor if a structure that directly affects their mission and morale with each work better. Civilian and contractor. To enhance users parents, we have established a Customer Experience office. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you for allowing me to testify here today and to share the work that the cda was doing. We spent the last year and a virtuous cycle. To answer the direct question at the beginning, we have to continue the cycle and that is what is going to increase the exhilaration. This is accelerating analytics in ai. We create sustainable changes at scale, weeding and overseeing this printable staff assisted function. Mostly through policy guidance but also actively delivery capabilities across the full range. This enables change. And running the business of the dod. Think about it this way. If our job is to build all of the air department, that does not scale. We will build monday and tuesday solutions. It is really the tools and policies and best practices. They need that ai. They are the ones that understand the problem. We have been tackling both of these fronts. The second allows for sustainability. We do this through the eye through the hierarchy of needs. You have to get the data right. The foundational air is do we have the right data . It is understandable. Can people use that data . Think about a separation between data and apps. The next level above that is analytics and metrics. Spent a greater our time this year getting people to move from effort based metrics to outcome based metrics. That has allowed for the running of the department. On the top of that is ai. You measure the past to protect the future. You need the quality data. This hierarchy of needs combined with the agile approach is how were going to drive this sustainable change to our virtuous cycle. What do i mean by an edge approach . This is what is continuing to drive. We deliver by learning by doing, shipping fast and iterating quickly. This is done on Real Networks with real data to learn and deliver fast. We could not have done without working closely. Think. Good morning. I am honored to be here today. I am honored to be alongside dr. Craig martel. A key ally and partner in the campaign to innovate, modernize, secure and defend the departments network. We the peoples republic of china giving all cyber has to strengthen our digital technologies. Through the support of this committee, we look forward to highlighting our future plans. Resiliency, a jodie comer survivability and velocity are key tenants in describing our initiative started with the Department Flagship which was awarded in december of 2022. It provides access to multiple global cloud fabrics. Along with the 47 passwords, we have successfully deployed pay commissions. We also had joint operational edge. It is critical that we ensure that dod personnel have secured software we got this where theyre located. With templates, tools and automation in our software platform. Equally important is perimeter defenses. We have two keypads ongoing with commercial companies that are increasing our ability to see encounter activity which are increasing each and every day. We are in lockstep with the zero step. Thunder down which is part of our next Generation Network and data environment while also increasing cybersecurity by knowing who is accessing the network, limiting individuals to only the data they are authorized to access. In haste enhanced Data Analytics like fires and houses that key players in spreading cash from spreading. Our work is not done. I believe our new Strategic Plan outlined the goals. A final area to highlight is our commitment to novella mission such as the National Leadership command capability. This will deploy and integrated multiple of the secure voice and Video Communications and conferencing capability to the to apply direct support to Senior Leaders including the president , secretary, chairman and Nuclear Command and control community. Nerve these initiatives are possible without our bold and quickly thinking workforce. Our workforce when workforce 20 35 strategy is to retain and professionally professionally develop that the rape and nessel the right personnel are in the right positions. Strengthen and resilience and work Better Success relies on the support subcommittee has provided for many years. Im grateful for your support and the opportunity. We were number of the questions. Whats the joint fires network in the absence of a solution or operational capability, how will you contribute to the j fan and by extension command and control. How do you see the joint operating system and cedia efforts fitting into the j fm . Thank you for the question. We were cannon hand with arnie and with research and extremity in. The underlying data later which draws data to build to make the decisions, to be able to quote change comes from the ceo. We have a team that sits with them and when we need more data, we help deliver that data. They were a key part of our last experimentation. The success was due to that partnership. We are tightly aligned. Questing used elaborate for us on the difference between the joint operation system and the data . Out there it is part of the Data Integration layer. Think about as two major components. A catalog to help you find where data is and apis that allow the data to be served. That data has to be so the work with cio is really important there. The data is in the red cloud place. The data has an api that is that allows an application builder to access that data when needed and it is discoverable. Not only discoverable but when it is discovered, it is understood. Just us specific things that we originally contracted them for and they are now part of that Data Integration there. They have data they are providing. That has an api layer. You want to think about the Data Integration there as a multivendor heterogeneous entity that is the data that is needed is discoverable and accessible. That is what we are driving four. On 25, it says that the joss is moving to production. I like the idea of using all sorts of Acquisition Authority in commercial technology. Could you elaborate more on how you see the johnson production . And may have to take that for the record or for the closed session because i dont actually know specifically if we can talk about what it delivers. They deliver specific information that was necessary for the joint fires network. Is there hardware that is distributed across pay, theater that allows that data to flow easily and it is discoverable through our catalog and our apis. I think i answered the question more specifically that did before. You are leaving soon. What are the metrics you would your tenure on . Massive increase in demand for getting it right. We just did a presentation across multiple to parents about the six the successes we had. A year ago there were a lot of i dont know what this means. I dont know what you mean by getting the data right, i dont know what you mean by having the data accessible in the right time and right place. I was very pleasant surprised. There is no longer an ambiguity in our work about what this is. It isnt a system, not even a destination. It is a set of behavioral patterns. This was command and control for that. The demand for that data flow has geometrically increased over the past 1. 5 years. If there is a wind that i am strongly willing to claim, it is that. How would you respond to the articles about the poor Climate Service . That is great. A great question. Really important one. We did a very hard past. We took four organizations, we merged them with very distinct cultures and we had to break a lot of expectations in doing that. There were lots of people that wanted to do particular things and we set no. We will look for economies of scale and we will do these things instead. That is a Monumental Task for any merger and acquisition. Its going to upset some people. We worked really hard over the last year to work with some Industrial Partners on getting our culture right, on making sure our teams are being heard, that communication flows better, we did a bias as fusion new to the expense of giving occasion with our people in the beginning. I am looking for to next month when the new poll service are released. I fill confident they will say good things. Take you, mr. Chair. See were to drop you worked at dropbox. Can you describe some of the collaboration with silken Valley Technology companies you had and how that can improve . We could not have done the job without a tight partnership with key companies. Palantir is one. Data bricks is another. Almost everything we do and then all of the cloud providers. Who call google, and herzog google and amazon and microsoft. Every silken valley company. We could not have done it without them. We spent a great two of time talking to the leaders of those companies to get buyers for the stores i am telling you now. What i try to do was take best practices from silken valley witches that is more important. The data has to proceed the app that is on top of it. Quality data has to proceed ai. I vetted this view with all of my colleagues in silken valley. I had many conversations not just with the breakup is but lots of startups to make sure that they were on board and that they would be willing to engage after we built out this multivendor integration layer that would allow for separation of data for maps. Are the things we can do to improve collaboration . You ticket is in a pretty good place . I think we have we still have some work to tackle. Doug beck is a really strong higher. He is on board. Ive seen an increase in the way we have been interacting with Small Businesses for example. Because of the market was we built, we are now up to 65 nontraditional complete contrast. We are up 75 Small Business contracts and many of these are done in 30 to 60 days. That is because of the authorities you have all given us. We are seeing some growth. We are seeing some inertia increase. But we need that to continue. I think the biggest take away if im candid, the thing i feel best about is that at the end of my tenure, people are demanding more. 100 agree. Pastor has to happen. Hundred percent agree but i think it is not clear what has to happen faster witches getting the data right, having the data flow correctly, being able to integrate with companies as quick as possible and it shouldnt be something we built. It has to be multivendor and hybrid. I see you have a Computer Science phd degree from the university of pennsylvania. Any people rightfully have been concerned about antisemitism and there is no place for that on because campuses but some of the rhetoric in this building has gotten pretty excessive. One number of congress that im going to start defining these universities. He talked about what it would mean for our National Security and ability to have a lead in ai if we just started defunding m. I. T. University of pennsylvania, harvard and many of these universities . They can for that landmine question. I think it is a tough call. The environment of a university in order to be effective has to allow for everyone to be able to think freely. But i do agree that if we dont continue to fund stem the way we need to fund stem and continue to Fund Technology the way we need to then that is going to put us behind. Continuing to fund has to be the case. Quotes general skinner, are you a gamer . I am not. No madden, no ea sports, call of duty . . Son is. I am not. Im not either. But it seems a lot of our servicemembers are. A lot of ussr building these great gaming complexes. I took a great interest in a report that we were feeding some of the starcraft two game models into integration with chatgpt and ai surpasses humans. I guess what they did in this case was they told jet told chatgpt to function as an assistant to a military commander in this engagement so i imagine like in ai to its root, assistant to the regional manager. In changing, dynamics, military assistant turned out to be quick capable. Dr. Martel, you seem to have some familiarity with this. What can we learn from the integration of giving models and ai in military strategy . I am not a gamer but let me talk about how we might effectively use tools. We have been working really hard to figure out where and when generative ai is going to be useful and where it will be dangerous. The danger is it takes a high kind of look to fill it in the upper this model. There is a very large demand signal for ai to replace efforts and allowed novices to replace experts. Where ticket will be most effective is helping experts be better experts. Question i dont know. I find a lot of novices showing capability as experts when they are able to access these large leg which models. I think the reason is it is its really to validate output. As long as there is a way i am totally on board. Hallucination has not gone away yet. There is lots of hope that this will go in. There is