DHS hires initial cohort of 10 to join its AI Corps

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday that it has recruited the first 10 artificial intelligence experts for its AI Corps, a hiring sprint the department launched in February to better leverage emerging technologies across its operations. 

DHS is planning to hire a total of 50 experts this year for the AI Corps, which is modeled on the White House’s U.S. Digital Service. Experts within that unit are deployed to various federal agencies to help them with technology initiatives. The AI Corps follows that same approach but across DHS. 

The department said in a press release that the unit’s new hires “will play pivotal roles responsibly leveraging AI across strategic mission areas, including countering fentanyl trafficking, combatting online child sexual exploitation and abuse, delivering immigration services, fortifying critical infrastructure and enhancing cybersecurity.”

The experts picked for the AI Corps come from a range of public and private sector organizations, including Google, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Naval Observatory, McKinsey & Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“We are excited to onboard our first group of AI experts to begin the work of our new AI Corps,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “I look forward to growing our AI Corps in the months ahead, as we continue to introduce the safe and responsible use of AI across the broad range of missions we perform.”

DHS announced in April that Michael Boyce, a veteran of the White House Office of Management and Budget, would serve as director of the AI Corps.