The multi-cloud multiverse: How the Pentagon can achieve AI success

As hundreds of AI initiatives and programs are underway across the Department of Defense, many are facing new and diverse challenges when it comes to operationalization. Selecting a solution and putting it into practice are certainly not the same task, creating challenges that span both organizational and data facades. For example, the rise of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures present data integration, access and management challenges for many as agencies seek to leverage data assets that span across both on-premise and hosted solutions. This may be why the GSA Data Center and Cloud Optimization Initiative Program Management Office recently released a Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud Guide to help agencies make better decisions about cloud architecture. Further complicating matters is that the DoD is facing a groundbreaking December award of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability procurement. Pentagon Chief Information Officer John Sherman describes the JWCC as a "multi-cloud effort that will provide enterprise cloud capabilities for the Defense Department at all three security classifications: unclassified, secret, and top secret all the way from the continental United States out to the tactical edge."