US military wants $29.8m for IT to boost AI intel analysis

The US Northern Command, the military command group designated to protect North America from attack, has lobbied Congress for $29.8m to expand its IT infrastructure to better support machine-learning technologies. The request is part of the command's unfunded priorities list for fiscal year 2023, a wish list of all the gear and tech US NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reckons is needed for building and testing new weapons or operating monitoring systems, totaling some $135 million. The requested IT funding will, we're told, be used to procure cloud computing infrastructure to run AI workloads from US NORTHCOM and NORAD's joint operations center, according to Defense News this week. The goal is to build smart cloud-hosted systems that can process incoming data, generate insight and decision options, and make this intelligence available across the Dept of Defense for leaders to consider. "Maintaining our strategic advantage begins with improving domain awareness globally, including in the approaches to North America," General Glen VanHerk, US NORTHCOM and NORAD's commander, said in a statement before the Senate Armed Forces in late March.