How DOD plans to make working with emerging tech companies easier

The Department of Defense is working to adopt more powerful technologies by strengthening private sector partnerships and enhancing internal collaboration between components focused on driving innovation, the head of the Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, or CDAO, said on Wednesday. 

During a session at the AWS Summit, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer Radha Plumb said DOD is attempting “to be less hard to work with” when it comes to modernizing its data and IT infrastructure. Plumb previously served as deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment before taking over as director of CDAO in April. 

Her office announced last month that it was launching a new multi-vendor ecosystem — known as Open Data and Applications Government-owned Interoperable Repositories, or Open DAGIR — to better coordinate its data sharing efforts with private sector partners and to help scale its data, artificial intelligence and analytics capabilities. 

DOD awarded a contract to Palantir to develop the ecosystem, which will initially be used to support the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control — or CJADC2 — initiative. That effort is designed to help DOD ensure interoperability across disparate military environments.

In announcing Open DAGIR effort last month, Plumb said at the time that Open DAGIR would help DOD “leverage the innovative solutions from the world-class software developers in both the traditional and nontraditional industrial base to create capabilities for our warfighters and decision makers.”

Plumb reiterated the importance of that collaborative approach to the Pentagon on Wednesday, saying the initiative is intended to help determine “where are those capability gaps that we think technology can solve” across DOD and then work to “set up a routine and repeated process to bring that to partners of industry and help them help us.”

She added that DOD is attempting to further engage with the commercial sector along that front by hosting a series of industry days, the first of which is scheduled to take place in mid-July.

In addition to the new ecosystem, Plumb pointed to a memorandum of agreement that CDAO signed with the Defense Innovation Unit earlier this month that she said is designed to help in “connecting with their commercial sector.”

“That's really intended to create a clear front door for folks to come in, figure out what technology we need and have that conversation be ongoing so we can broaden the industrial base of support,” she said.

DIU, which helps accelerate DOD’s adoption of commercial technologies for military use, is also working to enhance its collaboration with private sector partners. The unit’s head said in February that DIU was entering “a new phase” that would help the Pentagon meet the challenges posed by China and other adversaries by addressing critical gaps in the military’s technical capabilities.