CBP's supply chain efforts are screaming for AI - FedScoop

U.S. Customs and Border Protection wants to apply artificial intelligence to the ingestion and analysis of increasing amounts of data coming out of its efforts to secure the U.S. supply chain. CBP needs to analyze data earlier along the supply chain because currently, it's getting involved too late after products have been manufactured and already begun international transit, Vincent Annunziato, director of the agency's Business Transformation and Innovation Division, said during ACT-IAC's Reimagine Nation ELC 2020 on Monday. The agency is responsible for ensuring importer and exporter compliance with laws and regulations that prevent harmful or counterfeit products from entering or exiting the U.S. The volume of supply chain data CBP is dealing with has skyrocketed since the agency started piloting blockchain to secure various industries like steel and oil, and only AI and machine learning can make sense of it all. "All of this now is starting to play into that AI and machine learning arena because, one, we're getting data that we've never seen before," Annunziato said. "Two … the government is going to look into designing a system that's flexible for the data that's coming in so that, even if you don't have all the appropriate data at the time that you submit it, you can update it as you go along."