When speaking of the Department of Defense's artificial intelligence research and development, a panel of academics and the Pentagon's top A.I. officials agreed the effort is underfunded and understaffed. The threat, however, is ever-present and adversaries are devoting significant amounts of money and personnel to develop A.I., Air Force Lt. Gen. John Shanahan, the director of the Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, told USNI News after a panel discussion Tuesday at The Promise and The Risk Of the A.I. Revolution conference, hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute at the U.S. Naval Academy. "At its core, we are in a strategic competition," Shanahan said. "We're in a strategic competition against a peer adversary -- not near-peer -- but peer." Russia and China are devoting vast amounts of resources to develop A.I. capabilities, Shanahan said.