One groundbreaking development in pathology and cancer detection is the augmented reality microscope (ARM). During a session at Google Cloud Next ’24, experts discussed how the ARM is poised to revolutionize cancer diagnosis. The initiative is a collaboration between the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs (VA), DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit, Google Public Sector and Jenoptik.

The AI-assisted microscope provides not only a view of how AI is increasing the diagnostic accuracy and efficiency of cancer detection but also its ability to operate on edge devices to support medical and other professionals. That allows those professionals to operate locally, independent of internet or cloud connectivity. That’s becoming increasingly critical as the number of experienced healthcare specialists qualified to perform diagnostic evaluations is declining in the U.S.

ARM’s impact also extends beyond individual diagnoses. By digitizing tissue samples and harnessing the power of AI, the microscope eliminates geographical barriers, ensuring that patients everywhere have access to the expertise of top-tier pathologists.

A look at the development process

The genesis of the ARM lies in the recognition of a critical challenge faced by pathologists — the meticulous task of analyzing tissue slides, often numbering in the hundreds, to detect cancerous abnormalities. While traditional microscopes are indispensable, they present inherent limitations in terms of efficiency and accuracy, which are compounded by the sheer volume of data pathologists need to process.

The ARM integrates artificial intelligence (AI) into the diagnostic process. At its core, this device leverages AI algorithms deployed on the edge to analyze digitized tissue samples in real time. This transformative approach enables pathologists to identify potential abnormalities with unprecedented speed and precision, significantly enhancing diagnostic accuracy.

“The job of pathologists is to make sure that what we do is very accurate and that we can identify the disease. We don’t want to make a mistake,” said Dr. Nadeem Zafar, director of pathology and laboratory medicine service at Veterans Affairs Puget Sound. “This is where the technology comes in, and this is why we are so excited about it.”

The development process of the (ARM) also illustrates the power of collaboration. “Here at Google… we don’t just want to incrementally improve things like cancer diagnosis; we want to do it at scale,” said Scott Frohman, head of defense programs for Google Cloud. “And this project enabled us to think and connect and do something good for humanity.”

Current and future impacts

Central to the microscope’s functionality is its ability to highlight areas of interest detected by AI algorithms, providing pathologists with guidance during the diagnostic process. In addition, combining AI-driven insights with human expertise will empower healthcare professionals to make more informed decisions with greater confidence.

“Why I’m so excited about this technology is that it will bring so many experts to your desktop — while in the workflow, while in the flow of time,” Dr. Zafar said. “This is not something you have to learn. As long as you have the software… it will start giving you the heatmap and help detect cancer. So this is brilliant.”

In addition, this endeavor’s success underscores the pivotal role of public-private partnerships in driving innovation and advancing healthcare. Through concerted efforts and a shared vision, stakeholders across government, industry, and academia have made the ARM a reality, with tangible benefits for patients and healthcare providers alike.

“We know that we can’t solve these kinds of problems alone. So the partnership that we have with the government has been fantastic for bringing the subject matter expertise, the data, and the commitment to solving this problem with us,” said Frohman. “And it helps us to do the mission that we have at Google — making information available and accessible during cancer and making the human condition better every day.”

Thanks to AI and edge computing, the ARM promises to redefine the standard of care in pathology, offering new hope in the relentless pursuit of a cancer-free future.

Learn more about how Google Public Sector can help your organization “Kickstart your generative AI journey.”

This article was produced by Scoop News Group and sponsored by Google Public Sector. Google Public Sector is an underwriter of AI Week.

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Defense and intelligence community leaders working to improve security resilience and remain operational during disruptions should consider the full capabilities of next-generation firewall (NGFW) solutions, says a new report produced by Scoop News Group, for FedScoop, and underwritten by Cisco.

Because organizations have acquired separate security tools over time, they have added a lot of complexity to their suite of solutions. NGFW can now provide interconnectivity between firewalls, intrusion detection systems, intrusion protection systems, workload security, endpoint security, threat intelligence and encrypted traffic analysis.

“I remind people that there are over 3,100 U.S.-based security vendors — tens of thousands across the world — and while I will never argue against the necessity of a security tool, I do stress that at some point, these innovations need to either work with something else or be bought by somebody,” explained Chris Crider, security systems engineering leader at Cisco. “At some point, leaders have to make choices on how to best implement security in their environment.”

DOD and IC communities aren’t alone in this challenge. A recent study, produced by Scoop News Group, asked 165 prequalified federal leaders about the state and strength of their current security posture.

More than half (55%) of respondents reported that their security tools function moderately to completely independently from their suite of solutions. And 33% said their organization uses between 11 to 40 different vendors across their security technologies, while 11% use more than 50 security vendors.

But changing the way organizations defend the perimeter is a sentiment that defense leaders are echoing. In a recent FedScoop interview, James “Aaron” Bishop, CISO for the Department of the Air Force, spoke about the challenges of defining the network perimeter and how the Air Force is securing their substantial IT environment.

Bishop referred to the Air Force as operating “150 little cities around the world,” which encompasses a vast IT infrastructure with technology running on different lifecycles that need to be upgraded, maintained, patched and replaced.

“But as a warfighting mission,” he explained, “I also have to extend that capability beyond that base. So now my networks have to go into expeditionary communications, extended aerial networks, etc. Now I need to understand where that perimeter is, where do I protect it [and] where do I pass it on to the next environment that may or may not be there today or tomorrow?”

Leaning into NGFW allows organizations to adopt dynamic packet filtering and policies that travel with applications as they move across a global infrastructure.

“That means that DOD and IC organizations can build and implement policies and additionally utilize security group tags to specify the privileges of a traffic source within a trusted network. Then migrate into any cloud to provide services globally and take the analytics and logging to monitor traffic with a single pane of glass,” added Norman St. Laurent, cyber security specialist at Cisco. “With NGFW, organizations can always monitor what is happening on the network, have a holistic view of activity and full contextual awareness to see threat activity across users, hosts, networks and devices.”

The first important step is finding the right partner to begin integrating security solutions. According to Gartner, organizations should look for some of the following key capabilities when implementing an NGFW:

• Standard firewall capabilities like a stateful inspection.
• Integrated intrusion prevention.
• Application awareness and control to see and block risky applications.
• Threat intelligent sources.
• Upgrade paths to include future information feeds.
• Techniques to address evolving security threats.

Read the full report and learn more about integrating a firewall solution that will adapt to your organization’s evolving network needs.

This article was produced by Scoop News Group, for FedScoop, and sponsored by Cisco.

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Speaking Thursday at the first public briefing by executives after Oracle’s $28.3 billion acquisition of Cerner closed, Larry Ellison set out a future vision in which the medical records company will play a key role in the cloud giant’s further expansion into global healthcare technology.

“We [a combination of Oracle and Cerner] are going to modernize and expand Millennium substantially. The first thing we are going to do is to make it easy to use. We’re going to have a voice user interface to Millennium that makes it easier for doctors to access medicine and orders.”

He added: “There is also an integrated telemedicine module that allows [users] to consult. If you are living in rural America and you want to consult with a specialist at MD Anderson for cancer, then you can do that via secure video teleconference.”

According to the executive, Oracle will also add disease-specific AI modules — including a recently developed cancer-specific module — to the system.

Details of the changes come a day after Oracle’s $28.3 billion acquisition of medical records company Cerner closed. The U.S. government is among Cerner’s biggest clients, and the technology company currently has contracts with the Coast Guard, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs.

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, Cerner’s Millennium platform has formed the backbone of the agency’s troubled electronic health records (EHR) modernization program, which continues to attract scrutiny from lawmakers and government oversight bodies because of persistent outages.

Late last month, Senate lawmakers unanimously passed legislation that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to report the costs of its EHR modernization program more regularly and in greater detail.

Speaking at Thursday’s briefing event, Ellison also set out Oracle’s wider vision for Cerner, which will be the foundation of a new project which includes plans for the cloud giant to build a unified health database that will hold data belonging to millions of Americans in an anonymized form.

Oracle wants to create a new overarching nationwide system for patient health records across the U.S., which according to Ellison could overcome patient data fragmentation and allow doctors at any hospital to access a patient’s data when needed.

The new health records system would also help public health officials access data more quickly during a global health crisis such as a pandemic, he said.

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ManTech on Monday said it had accepted Carlyle’s all-cash buyout offer of $96 per share in cash, worth about $3.9 billion. The transaction has a total enterprise value of about $4.2 billion with included interest-bearing debt and preferred stock options.

The transaction is the latest example of M&A activity in the federal IT contracting market and comes after ManTech last year agreed to acquire DOD IT and cyber contractor Gryphon Technologies for $350 million.

Commenting on the sale, ManTech Chairman, CEO and President Kevin Phillips said: “This announcement is an important milestone for ManTech and a testament to our growth and the leadership position we have built since our founding by George Pedersen more than 50 years ago.”

“Following a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives, our Board determined that this transaction is in the best interest of our shareholders and provides them with the most compelling value maximization outcome, offering liquidity at a significant premium,” he added. “We look forward to leveraging Carlyle’s deep knowledge and experience investing in and growing companies, as we deliver stronger outcomes for our customers and increased opportunities for our employees.”

The sale comes amid a heightened focus on competition and cybersecurity within the defense industrial base (DIB). In a report published in February, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued recommendations to boost competition among DIB contractors to avoid national security risks associated with rapid consolidation.

Meanwhile, officials continue to raise the alarm over potential cybersecurity risks among contractors. A recent yearlong vulnerability disclosure pilot led by the Pentagon found a total of 1,015 potential security risks among small- and medium-sized defense contractors. Of these, 401 were validated by system owners for remediation.

Last February in a similar move, Northrop Grumman spun out its IT and mission services operations and sold it to PE house Veritas Capital for about $3.4 billion. These were subsequently combined with those of Veritas portfolio company Peraton.

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The online portal, www.ctoinnovation.mil, will provide a “one-stop shop” for outside organizations to access the department’s innovation “ecosystem,” according to a press release.

The site “serves as a gateway to the Department’s efforts to bring in new ideas and technology, with a special focus on students, universities, and businesses,” the release said.

“The Innovation Pathways website is one part of our on-going efforts to make it easier for those across the innovation ecosystem, including small businesses, new entrants to the defense markets, universities, and traditional defense suppliers, to find ways to collaborate with the DoD and each other,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. “For the first time, the Department has a website that puts the range of these different opportunities across the Department in one place.”

One of the pathways will allow students and faculty to search for available internships, grants, scholarships and research opportunities.

Another is intended for companies in the commercial sector seeking business opportunities with the DoD.

“Businesses can also learn about ways to seek specific science, technology, prototyping, and experimentation opportunities,” the release said.

A third pathway is designed for military personnel and DOD civilians seeking to leverage existing projects, participate in workshops, or collaborate.

Users can apply filtering criteria based on their interests to find relevant innovation organizations within the department.

The Pentagon plans to periodically update the website to be responsive to user needs and technology advances.  

The new online portal stemmed from work conducted by the Pentagon’s Innovation Steering Group, which was created by Hicks and chaired by Heidi Shyu, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

“One thing that drove me nuts is talking to small companies, I realized that, you know, the DoD is just a giant fortress. They don’t know where the door is,” Shyu said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association.

“One of the key things I wanted to do is create an R&E website so they’re able to go into the R&E website and be able to navigate through this maze,” she said. For example, “we’re linking to each of the services in terms of, if you’re interested in what the Army is doing and the Air Force is doing in terms of innovation opportunities, you can click on a link and it will take you right to the portal. So … hopefully you’re no longer groping in the dark.”

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A DOD fact sheet on the latest $800 million security assistance package announced Wednesday included an unspecified number of “unmanned coastal defense vessels” among the items being provided to the Ukrainians.

“Coast defense is something that Ukraine has repeatedly said they’re interested in,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters after the arms package was announced. “It is particularly an acute need now, as we see the Russians really refocus their efforts on the east and in the south.”

He added: “When you talk about the east and the south, you’re talking about the Sea of Azov in a maritime environment and you’re talking about the northern Black Sea. So these [unmanned] capabilities will be, we hope, helpful in their coastal defense needs.”

Even after the loss of their Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva, the Russians still have “quite a bit of naval capability available to them,” Kirby noted.

“They have used the maritime environment to strike inland. They have used the maritime environment to assault the mainland in terms of an amphibious assault. And they have used the maritime environment to intimidate and … we think, in some cases, try to pin down Ukrainian ground forces near Odessa,” he said.

What DOD has revealed about the coastal defense vessels

“It’s an unmanned surface vessel (USV) that can be used for a variety of purposes in coastal defense. I think I’ll just leave it at that,” Kirby told reporters.

He said the systems are coming from Navy stocks.

When pressed for more details, Kirby said: “I’m not gonna promise you a fact sheet [but] I can promise you the damn thing works.”

Kirby was later asked if the systems will be armed.

“They’re designed to help Ukraine with its coastal defense needs. And I think I’m just going to leave it at that. I’m not going to get into the specific capabilities,” he said.

Kirby was also asked if the vessels will be coming from Navy prototype programs, when they are expected to arrive in Ukraine waters, and whether they are intended to attack Russian vessels.

“As I can get you more information about actual deliveries, we’ll do that. I’m just not in a position to do that. The authorization just came down yesterday. And we’re working very hard at sourcing these things and getting them on the way to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” he replied.

He continued: “I’m not going to talk about the specific capabilities of these USVs. I’ve talked about them to the degree that we’re going to go.”

A senior defense official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, declined to say more about the system itself, but did note that some Ukrainian personnel have already been trained to use it.

FedScoop sent a list of questions to the Navy to try to learn more about the system, but a service spokesperson said they could not provide any of the information requested.

A spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council referred FedScoop to the Pentagon.

Roles and missions

While it’s unclear exactly how the Ukrainians will use the USVs, analysts told FedScoop there are several types of missions such vessels could conduct.

“There’s a wide variety of roles that unmanned surface systems could play, from helping to extend Ukraine’s surveillance out further and further away from its coastline, to potentially aiding in the targeting of Russian vessels, to helping to sweep Ukrainian waterways of mines if Russia goes that route,” said Peter W. Singer, a military technology expert and the author of Ghost Fleet, a novel that features USVs and other robotic systems.

“The more that you equip the Ukrainians to be able to defend their coastline, there’s a double benefit,” he said. “One, it pushes the Russian fleet back. Two, it frees up Ukrainian ground forces that might have had to have been deployed to defend coastline to operate elsewhere.”

The platforms could also potentially be used to directly attack Russian ships.

The ones being sent to Ukraine are likely designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and countermine operations, said Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute.

“But I would not be surprised if the Ukrainians, once they start using them, think about ways to put lethal payloads on them,” he said. “Once they get them, the Ukrainians can choose to equip them however they want. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ukrainians incorporate, you know, maybe some weapons systems on there in case they want to use those to attack Russian ships.”

Such weapons could potentially include small missiles that are essentially “guided rockets,” or machine guns. Alternatively, the Ukrainians could load the boats with explosives and ram them into Russian vessels like al-Qaida operatives did to the USS Cole in 2000, he said.

Some potential robo-ship candidates

The Navy and other DOD agencies have been building and experimenting with a wide range of USVs, from commercial pleasure craft types of vessels to large platforms like the 132-foot-long Sea Hunter prototype built by defense contractor Leidos.

Analysts say the systems being shipped to Ukraine are most likely small platforms.

“They’ve got various prototype USVs that they’ve used for testing over the years … but the ones that they’ve bought, that they actually have a program of record around, is this small USV built by Textron” called the Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV), Clark said.

The system is about 30-feet long, he said.

According to a Textron fact sheet, the CUSV is a “multi-mission and multi-payload capable vehicle with significant in-water experience” that can be used for mine weeping and neutralization, ISR, harbor security, monitoring or protection.

“That’s the one [DOD is] probably shipping over there. It’s the one they’ve got in the most numbers, they’ve got the most experience with,” Clark said.

“I suspect that’s the one that’s been transferred, just because the other ones the U.S. has are all prototype vehicles of various kinds” and it’s unlikely the Pentagon would transfer a prototype to Ukraine, he added.

Brent Sadler, senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at the Heritage Foundation, said the Mantas T-12, built by MARTAC, might be what’s headed to Ukraine, noting that Ukrainians were recently training at a Navy base in Little Creek, Virginia.

“When they say they’ve been trained [on the coastal defense vessels], that could have been in that training, because we’re talking small surface unmanned vessels that could be used for a variety of missions,” Sadler said.

The systems are 12-feet-long and have a maximum payload weight of 140 pounds, according to MARTAC.

The U.S. Navy’s Task Force 59, which has been testing unmanned tech, used the T-12 in an international exercise last year in the Central Command area of operations, Sadler noted.

“They’ve been tasked with integrating unmanned systems into port operations and security,” he said. “If there was a system that could be provided to Ukraine, it’s going to be something that was in that exercise, in my mind. And this Mantas T-12 comes to mind as an unmanned surface vessel.”

The impact on the war

The transfer of the unmanned coastal defense vessels isn’t likely to tip the balance in the Ukraine-Russia war, analysts say. Weapons like air-defense systems and anti-tank weapons are likely to have a bigger impact.

However, the move is not insignificant either.

“What this shows though is the fact that the U.S. is starting to diversify and widen the range of capabilities it’s providing to Ukraine, and also move into some more technologically sophisticated capabilities that, you know, represent what the U.S. military is on the cutting edge of developing,” Clark said.

He continued: “These USVs are like the newest technology that the U.S. Navy is developing for ISR and mine warfare. And so the fact that they’re going to share that with Ukraine is significant … from the psychological standpoint.”

The U.S. military might also benefit from the technology transfer, according to Sadler.

“What it does for the United States is it allows us to better refine how we [might] actually use these systems in combat, too. So we also learn and are able to benefit from the combat experience that the Ukrainians get from these and how they employ them. We learn a lot. So I think we also benefit by giving them this capability,” he said.

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The Biden administration on Monday released its fiscal 2023 budget request. The White House is asking for $773 billion for the Pentagon, including $146 billion for procurement, and $130 billion for research, development, test and evaluation.

During a briefing with reporters, Michael McCord, Pentagon comptroller and chief financial officer, said the total DOD budget would see about 4 percent nominal growth and 1.5 percent real growth over what was enacted for 2022, when accounting for projected inflation.

The numbers put out by the administration forecast a little more than 2% cost growth for the goods and services DOD buys, noted Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“That does not seem realistic at all,” he said Friday during a panel discussion hosted by the Center for a New American Security, noting that the consumer price index — a metric for measuring inflation — has risen to nearly 8 percent recently.

The Biden administration’s projections may have been based on rosy assumptions made months ago that the high levels of inflation seen last year would be fleeting, Harrison said.

“You can never predict the future exactly. We don’t yet know what inflation is going to be for 2023, but … we know it’s not going to be 2.2%,” he said.

He continued: “The big story here when they talk about, you know, a real increase in the defense budget, when you assume real inflation on top of that, it’s not actually an increase. It’s a decrease in the defense budget if you apply more realistic assumptions using more current economic data about what things are shaping up for in the coming year.”

Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget guru at the American Enterprise Institute, said the $773 billion figure is “masquerading” as a higher topline than what was enacted for 2022.

“The messaging from the services is, ‘We all got an increase.’ Of course, people like us are like, ‘Wait, we actually saw nothing that is an increase. You saw a real negative decline in your purchasing power,’” Eaglen said.

Frederico Bartels, senior policy analyst for defense budgeting at the Heritage Foundation, said at this point it’s impossible to predict exactly how high inflation will be in the next fiscal year given how much prices have been fluctuating.

However, DOD’s projection is “completely unrealistic and it’s very detached from the reality that we are all experiencing on that,” he added.

Rising personnel costs also limit the amount of money available for spending on new capabilities, noted Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security.

The Biden administration’s fiscal proposal for 2023 calls for a 4.6% pay bump for servicemembers and DOD civilians, well above the 2.7% increase seen this year.

“We have the best military personnel in the world. But it is expensive,” Pettyjohn said.

Presidents can make budget requests, but ultimately Congress has the power of the purse. In recent years, lawmakers have appropriated more funding for defense than the White House proposed. Analysts say the same thing could happen when lawmakers take up the 2023 budget.

The issue of inflation will be a “huge” factor in discussions, Harrison said.

“I expect Congress is going to add significant funding to this budget to cover inflation costs, to cover, you know, divestments they want to reverse, to cover new investments they want to make or accelerate,” he said.

The Hill will likely plus-up Pentagon coffers to the tune of $30 billion to $40 billion above what the Biden administration is proposing, Harrison predicted.

Bartels said lawmakers will want to “buy back” DOD’s eroded purchasing power, and they can be expected to try to prevent the divestments of ships and aircraft that were included in the budget proposal.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of gnashing of teeth and a substantially sour mood from the Hill when the senior leaders from the Defense Department come in front of them. And that’s all starting next week” when top Pentagon officials are scheduled to testify at hearings, he noted.

In addition to worrying about inflation and the Pentagon’s purchasing power — a concern that Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been raising publicly — Congress will also be looking at the Biden administration’s new National Defense Strategy and the resources needed to carry it out, Eaglen said.

A classified version of the strategy was sent to the Hill this week. An unclassified version is expected to be released in the coming months.

An NDS fact sheet released by DOD listed China as the department’s top strategic competitor and “pacing challenge,” and described Russia as posing “acute threats.”

Lawmakers are “going to address the gaps with the defense strategy and the actual [budget] request, and they’re going to use a variety of ways to get there,” Eaglen said. “But it won’t just be like last year, which was mostly a focus on the unfunded requirements lists from the services. I think this year the Hill is going to want to get more in the driver’s seat in terms of guiding defense budgets higher.”

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The White House is asking for $773 billion for the Pentagon in the next fiscal year, $130.1 billion of which would go toward research, development, test and evaluation accounts — the highest-ever level of RDT&E spending in DOD history, according to the Pentagon. That would be a 9.5% boost in RDT&E spending over the amount enacted for 2022.

“This budget reflects our strategy of directing resources to critical investments that allow us to maintain a combat credible force … [and] marshal America’s next generation of technology,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

The RDT&E request includes: $17.6 billion for space-based systems; $5.2 for shipbuilding and maritime systems; $10.4 billion for missiles and munitions; $9 billion for missile defense programs; $2.9 billion for ground systems; $5.3 billion for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) capabilities; $16.8 billion for aircraft and related systems; $46.4 billion for mission support; and $16.5 billion for science and technology.

The Navy budget would receive $21 billion for research and development, a 9.2% increase over the amount enacted for 2022, while the Marine Corps would receive about $3 billion, a 5.5% boost.

The fiscal plan “supports continued investment in high-value nuclear asset Columbia, and develops new long-range strike, undersea, hypersonic and autonomous capabilities,” Navy budget documents said.

That includes $1.4 billion for hypersonic weapons, $1 billion for cybersecurity, $651 million for satellite communications, $610 million for command and control systems, and $546 million for electronic warfare systems.

That also includes more than $900 million for unmanned systems such as the MQ-4, MQ-25, MQ-9 extended range, large unmanned surface vessel and extra-large unmanned undersea vehicle.

It also includes $195 million for Project Overmatch — the Navy’s contribution to Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) — $5.3 billion for classified programs, and additional funding for other capabilities.

The Air Force RDT&E budget would reach $33.4 billion, about $4.6 billion more than was requested for 2022.

It “invests in key modernization efforts … across many of the core missions such as air superiority, global strike, command and control, and rapid global mobility,” according to Air Force budget documents.

It includes about $3.3 billion for the B-21 stealth bomber, $1.7 billion for Next-Generation Air Dominance systems, $577 million for hypersonics prototyping, and $231 million for the Advanced Battle Management System – the service’s contribution to JADC2, as well as funding for other capabilities.

The Space Force RDT&E budget would jump to $15.8 billion, up from the $11.3 billion requested for 2022, “to protect and defend current space assets, build more resilient and defendable architectures, and develop offensive capabilities to challenge adversary space capabilities,” according to budget documents.

Funding for major programs includes about $3.5 billion for next-gen OPIR, $1 billion for resilient missile warning and missile tracking, and $566 million for evolved strategic satellite communications, as well as investments in other capabilities.

The Army’s total request for RDT&E is $13.7 billion, about $800 million less than the amount enacted for 2022. However, the non-S&T portion of the research-and-development budget would increase from $10.2 billion to about $11 billion – a 7.5% increase above the amount enacted for 2022.

That would help fund the service’s top modernization priorities, which include long-range fires, next-generation combat vehicles, future vertical lift, the network, air-and-missile defense, and soldier lethality.

“The Army is committed to a sustainable strategic path that develops and fields cutting-edge modernization programs for joint multi-domain operations,” according to Army budget documents.

It would fund prototyping of the long-range hypersonic missile, mid-range capability missile and Precision Strike Missile.

The R&D request also includes $2.7 billion for science and technology projects.

The plan “aligns 82% of S&T funding to the Army’s six modernization priorities to deliver concepts and capabilities at the speed of innovation,” according to budget documents.

A total of $34.4 billion would go toward the U.S. nuclear enterprise and nuclear modernization, which includes a new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, B-21 bomber, Long-Range Standoff cruise missile, and nuclear command, control and communications.

Other significant investments will be made toward “more mature artificial intelligence” and 5G communications initiatives, noted Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks.

The RDT&E request, combined with the $146 billion requested for procurement, will “deliver the combat credibility today and … into the future that we need across air, sea land, cyber and space,” she said during a briefing with reporters at the Pentagon.

Navy Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the funding “will modernize and it will transform the force needed to win [a conflict] in the 2030s and beyond.”

The request was shaped by U.S. government views of China as the “pacing challenge,” Grady said, adding that Russia poses an “acute threat.”

Travis Sharp, director of the defense budget studies program at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank, noted that the proposed growth in the RDT&E budget is significantly smaller than 9.5% once inflation is factored in.

“Because of the effects of inflation, every year’s defense budget has a good chance of being the largest R&D budget in history because of … the change in the purchasing power of dollars. So, you know, you always want to check out the effects of inflation and then see after you take away inflationary growth, what’s really left in terms of real growth,” he told FedScoop.

Michael McCord, Pentagon comptroller and chief financial officer, said under the Biden administration’s proposal the total DOD budget would only see 1.5 percent real growth over what was enacted for 2022. He did not provide figures for the real growth in the proposed RDT&E budget during a briefing with reporters.

Looking ahead, Sharp noted that long-term projections released Monday by the White House Office of Management and Budget has military RDT&E spending decreasing in nominal terms beginning in 2025.

“That’s noteworthy to me because over the last decade there’s been this steady trend of R&D spending receiving a steadily increasing share of the Pentagon’s budgetary pie. So these out-year projections make me wonder, is DoD intending to end that decade-long trend in which it prior prioritizes R&D spending?” he said.

It could be that the Pentagon is preparing to make “some tough decisions about which research programs it really wants to push forward and which ones it’s going to cull from the program in order to free up the necessary resources to fund the winners” that will successfully transition capabilities into production and fielding, he added.

Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget expert at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said Pentagon budgets have been out of balance in recent years, with too high a portion going toward research and development.

“The ratio of procurement to R&D is at historically unhealthy levels for the Defense Department. And they’ve also been that way for the last decade,” she said. “That means the Pentagon continues to take risk in the near term and in [force] capacity for the future.”

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The firm now has a new managing director, Jake Chapman who spoke with FedScoop in his first interview. Chapman is still working to get funding from Congress to invest in startups, but if given $50-$100 million, he says the Army Venture Capital Corporation could be a critical part of getting more startups and emerging technology in the hands of troops.

“I think our organization can play in that liminal space where there is a working product, and there is a buyer but most [venture capital firms] won’t touch the company, but we could step in and say alright we will bridge you for the next 18 months to two years until that contract comes through,” Chapman told FedScoop.

The Army Venture Capital Corporation’s (AVCC) first iteration was a failure, investing in companies that deflated during the 2008 recession and not building the goodwill it needed in the valley to be a trusted partner. Or a least, that’s Chapman’s diagnosis and exactly what he wants to avoid.

“The first ten years were not super successful from a financial perspective,” Chapman said. “Army circa 2002 did not really know what was going on in venture capital.”

Chapman said he brings the type of experience the Army needs to succeed this time around. He is a trained lawyer and has led venture firms in the valley focusing on “deep tech” like aerospace and biotech.

“The number of people that looked hard at the defense tech space … is a small group of people. I am one of them,” he said.

The problem for many startups that want to work in the defense space is that money is relatively easy to find in small, short bursts but major contracts take years to land. Without big contracts in hand, venture firms are often reluctant to bet on a company that wants to work with the military. That dynamic has often pushed startups to focus on commercial clients that can bring them revenue.

Chapman’s solution: give startups a few million dollars as a signal to investors that the Army is really interested. The power of the AVCC will be in the “signal” they send to the investor community with their cash. Couple its investments with a strong network in the valley, Chapman says AVCC can be a critical part in bridging the so-called valley of death.

In addition to bridge funding, Chapman wants the AVCC to focus on deterring adversarial capital from funds with ties to countries like China and Russia and doing what he called “ecosystem mapping,” or building data sets on the startups and private funds that want to work with DOD.

“We want to push and pull technology into the department,” he said.

Chapman

Chapman has more than a decade of experience in the valley and working with venture investments, work he says gives him the perspective to know what venture firms need to hear from companies seeking a new funding round.

His pivot from the commercial world to DOD was largely driven by a desire to apply his skills to national security problem sets. His father and members of his family served in the military and he felt his skills could best be applied to financing the tech needed to win the next war.

“I think one of the best ways of doing that is investing in national security tech,” he said.

Lobbying Congress

Chapman continues to work on building support for the orginization. While the authorities for AVCC remain on the books, it doesn’t have money. He hopes to bring on six people to help run the shop but so far his top priority is lobbying Congress for money.

He said he has seen support from both sides of the aisle and chambers for the idea. Similar initiatives have been raised to appropriate $100 million for an “innovation” fund.

“This is a totally unique tool in the DOD tool set and it would be a shame to let it go away,” he said.

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Google Cloud says their offering adheres to zero trust principles and use advanced machine learning-based firewalls to ensure the security of cloud and application access by DIU. The production contract could lead to broader adoption of the tools and services by the Department of Defense. DIU previously ran pilots with Google Cloud, Zscaler and McAfee Public Sector for multi-cloud management services, with Google Cloud coming out on top.

“In today’s new cybersecurity paradigm, it’s critical that government agencies see the benefits  of adopting a zero trust security strategy and have the option of selecting more modern, cloud native solutions that meet their unique needs,” Lynn Martin, vice president of North America public sector at Google Cloud, said in a statement.

The secure cloud management service is a container-based offering for application access and monitoring built on Google Cloud’s “Secure Application Access Anywhere” offering and uses its Anthos platform. It’s a new “standards-based solution” that Google Cloud says will serve as a scalable alternative to DOD’s network boundary points. The idea is to enable management of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud applications via Kubernetes, an automated container orchestration tech.

The contract award reinserts Google Cloud into the DOD’s cloud ecosystem after Google had previously stood down from several major defense technology projects in recent years. It had backed out on ethical grounds of the the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract, which has since been cancelled. Google also walked away from a major artificial intelligence contract, Project Maven, after employees protested the project.

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