The U.S Army is rolling out a strategy focused on software, data and artificial intelligence practices, a move officials believe will clarify for industry what the service needs to transform into a high-tech, digital-forward force and how, exactly, it plans to get there. The strategy, which will be unveiled during the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference, is meant to help "pivot our programs to adopt modern software practices, adopt data-centricity, and get us to artificial intelligence, machine learning and [figuring] out where the right applications of that are so that we can really enable commanders in the field to make data-driven, fast decisions," Jennifer Swanson, the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for data engineering and software, told Defense News in an interview ahead of the event. Swanson's title alone hints at the transformation underway for the Army's acquisition branch. When she was hired earlier this year, she was chief systems engineer. The strategy arrives as the Army conducts a massive overhaul of its virtual footprint and computer infrastructure in order to better prepare for potential conflicts with China and Russia.

In the Arizona desert, a pair of robots methodically trundles back-and-forth across the craggy earth. Bulky, angular and slow, they're not terribly impressive to watch. But U.S. Army leaders see these robots as a vision of the future: part of a new pipeline to put better, more reliable technology into the hands of soldiers faster than ever before. A year earlier, at the first-ever Project Convergence, held in 2020 at Yuma Proving Ground, users had to tell the robot to go from point A to point B to point C to conduct a reconnaissance mission. For the 2021 event, users simply gave the robots a designated area for the same task, and the system turned to artificial intelligence to determine the best path. The robots demonstrated how they could keep soldiers out of harm's way, allow for sensors in new positions that were previously impractical and present new data to commanders.

Even as the U.S. Army attempts to integrate cutting edge technologies into its operations, many of its platforms remain fundamentally in the 20th century. The way tank crews operate their machine has gone essentially unchanged over the last 40 years. At a time when the military is enamored with robotics, artificial intelligence and next generation networks, operating a tank relies entirely on manual inputs from highly trained operators. "Currently, tank crews use a very manual process to detect, identify and engage targets," explained Abrams Master Gunner Sgt. "Tank commanders and gunners are manually slewing, trying to detect targets using their sensors. Once they come across a target they have to manually select the ammunition that they're going to use to service that target, lase the target to get an accurate range to it, and a few other factors."

Artificial intelligence technology tested during the Army's Project Convergence exercise largely met expectations and will help transform the way the Army fights in the future, officials say. Army officials held a media roundtable September 23 to discuss lessons learned during the recently completed Project Convergence, which is designed to ensure the Army, as part of the joint force, can rapidly and continuously converge effects across all domains--air, land, maritime, space and cyberspace--to overmatch adversaries in both competition and actual conflict. A key part of the Army's massive modernization effort, the project focuses on people, weapons systems, information, command and control, and terrain to assess areas of advancement and identify areas for improvement. Artificial intelligence, or AI, played a role, along with autonomy and robotics, which Gen. John Murray, USA, commanding general, Army Futures Command, describes as three key technologies for the Army's future. Gen. Murray compares the trio of technological capabilities to those that gave the Germans an initial advantage during World War II.

Fox News Flash top entertainment and celebrity headlines are here. Check out what's clicking today in entertainment. The U.S. military recently conducted a live-fire full combat replication with unmanned-to-unmanned teaming guiding attacks, small reconnaissance drones, satellites sending target coordinates to ground artillery and high-speed, AI-enabled "networked" warfare. This exercise was a part of the Army's Project Convergence 2020, a weapons and platform combat experiment which, service leaders say, represents a massive transformation helping the service pivot its weapons use, tactics and maneuver strategies into a new era. Taking place at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona, Project Convergence involved live-fire war experiments aligned in three distinct phases, intended to help the Army cultivate its emerging modern Combined Arms Maneuver strategy.

After weeks of work in the oppressive Arizona desert heat, the U.S. Army carried out a series of live fire engagements Sept. 23 at Yuma Proving Ground to show how artificial intelligence systems can work together to automatically detect threats, deliver targeting data and recommend weapons responses at blazing speeds. Set in the year 2035, the engagements were the culmination of Project Convergence 2020, the first in a series of annual demonstrations utilizing next generation AI, network and software capabilities to show how the Army wants to fight in the future. The Army was able to use a chain of artificial intelligence, software platforms and autonomous systems to take sensor data from all domains, transform it into targeting information, and select the best weapon system to respond to any given threat in just seconds. Army officials claimed that these AI and autonomous capabilities have shorted the sensor to shooter timeline -- the time it takes from when sensor data is collected to when a weapon system is ordered to engaged -- from 20 minutes to 20 seconds, depending on the quality of the network and the number of hops between where it's collected and its destination. "We use artificial intelligence and machine learning in several ways out here," Brigadier General Ross Coffman, director of the Army Futures Command's Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team, told visiting media.