Jamie Holcombe, chief information officer in the patent office, said that when it comes to adoption of emerging technologies like AI, leadership within the federal government needs to change the culture and incentive structure of the workforce.

“Culture, culture, culture. I don’t care about the tech. We can solve it. We prove that you can. But it’s the culture, if they’re willing to receive [new tech]. Unless there’s a burning platform, a lot of people will say, ‘I’ll [have] somebody else do it, I’ll figure it out later,’” Holcombe said during the Google Public Sector Forum hosted by Scoop News Group in Washington, D.C.

“Especially with government bureaucracy, we have so many people that are just incentivized to sit there and punch their card, turn the paper or, you know, sign this and put it over here, I did my job,” he added. “We need to change and challenge the status quo, we need to get a sense of urgency and incentive for our government workers.”

The USPTO in 2021 sent its top engineers to Google to be certified in TensorFlow and develop neural network feedback loops for patent examiners to rate algorithms, as well as to apply machine learning and AI to patent classification, search and quality.

Holcombe was highly critical of the federal government’s approach to innovation and long-term modernization during the Google forum.

“Our budgeting process is stupid. Our procurement is stupid. Everything we do in the government is pretty stupid, when you compare it to the commercial world, right?” Holcombe said. “There’s so many lessons that no one is willing to take. Who in their right mind would run a commercial enterprise or operation using a budget that was conceived three years ago?”

He also highlighted key differences between how the federal government and the private sector operate when it comes to emerging technologies like AI.

“If we ran our government like we ran Silicon Valley, we’d be much more efficient,” Holcombe said. “Can you imagine the Silicon Valley guy saying, ‘Wait a second, I have to fill all my compliance things before I prove my product works in the marketplace? What are you freaking kidding me?’” 

Google Public Sector Managing Director Aaron Weis pushed back on Holcombe regarding government compliance.

“We do compliance for the government, so we actually have to get all our Google products accredited,” Weis said. “So we’re gonna fill out all the government’s compliance forms, but we might use AI to do it now.”

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The confirmed guest list for his Sept. 13 AI insight forum includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai; Tesla, X and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk; NVIDIA President Jensen Huang; Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg; technologist and Google alum Eric Schmidt; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Schumer’s office said earlier this week.

The tech industry leaders, along with representatives from labor and civil rights advocacy groups, will join Schumer and other members of Congress for a closed-door AI “bipartisan forum,” without press.

In June, Schumer, a New York Democrat, said that he would host a forum to “lay down a new foundation for AI policy.”

“We need the best of the best sitting at the table: the top AI developers, executives, scientists, advocates, community leaders, workers, national security experts – all together in one room, doing years of work in a matter of months,” Schumer said, according to the Senate Democrats’ website.

The Senate majority leader has planned nine different forums beginning with next month’s that will focus on potential avenues for regulating the technology. These “insight forums” will focus on issues including national security, privacy, high-risk applications, bias, and the implications of AI for the workforce, gathering both those bullish on AI as well as skeptics and critics of the technology.

Schumer in June also introduced a plan to develop comprehensive legislation in Congress to regulate and advance the development of artificial intelligence in the U.S. Called the “Safe Innovation Framework for AI Policy,” the plan outlines ways to “protect, expand, and harness AI’s potential” as Congress pursues legislation.

The senator’s AI push comes as federal officials, along with Congress, weigh myriad approaches to regulating AI.  There’s growing pressure on the U.S. to catch up to the European Union, which recently passed a draft legislation called the AI Act. At the same time, federal officials are also searching for ways to push U.S. companies to the forefront of global AI technology development — particularly as China continues to invest in the technology, too.

As the quest to regulate the tech ramps up, AI experts, activists, and civil rights groups have continued to highlight the harms that artificial intelligence can create or exacerbate, including misinformation, bias and discrimination, intellectual property issues, and data privacy and cybersecurity risks. 

The Biden administration has also expressed commitment to safeguarding Americans’ rights and safety with a focus on protecting user privacy and addressing bias and misinformation in AI. Biden in June met with tech leaders and academics in the AI space in Silicon Valley.

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The tech behemoths reiterated their support for flexible risk based AI regulatory frameworks like the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s AI Risk Management Framework rather than more horizontal, rigid, top down regulatory approaches like the proposed EU AI Act that’s currently being debated. 

Google and IBM were responding to a public consultation launched in May by the Biden administration to gather evidence from industry and researchers on the major threats and opportunities presented by AI. It is one of several recent inquiries launched to examine the technology, including a request for information from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in April.

“IBM urges the Administration to adopt a “precision regulation” posture towards AI. This means establishing rules to govern the technology’s deployment in specific use-cases, not regulating the technology itself,” the company said in its comments submitted to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy regarding national priorities for AI.

“IBM supports leveraging existing authorities to regulate AI. As such, we recommend that the Administration support an approach to regulating AI that prioritizes empowering every agency to be an AI agency,” the company said.

IBM in its comment to the OSTP added that the White House should push for the greater resources and the expansion of the GSA’s AI Center of Excellence, the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR), and agencies with high compute needs like the Commerce Department and the Energy Department.  

Google in its comment to the OSTP reiterated the importance of NIST taking the lead on trustworthy AI policies, standards and best practices in the U.S., and highlighted the need to ensure government acquisition policies are reformed to require AI training for acquisition workforce, remove barriers to data governance that harness the power of AI, and push federal agencies to use AI systems to enhance operations and decision making. 

The search giant also pushed for the White House to establish an AI competitiveness council in the form of a National AI Security & Competitiveness Council, or reactivate the National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI), to assess research and development (R&D) gaps and AI deployment to ensure that the US government is equipped to address security and defense challenges from foreign rivals and advocate for aligned international governance. 

IT global trade association, the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), also submitted a comment to the OSTP calling for NIST to be at the forefront of AI regulatory technical standards. 

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Tom previously served in the Biden White House as special assistant to the president and deputy director of digital strategy before leaving in August 2022 to serve as head of Americas for the McCourt Institute, a digital governance organization, according to his Linkedin profile.

“Christian is an innovator. He helped develop a first-of-its-kind digital strategy in 2020 — one that has continued to be a key part of this Administration’s approach to reach Americans in new, creative, and authentic ways,” Biden said in a Friday statement.

Tom first joined the White House in 2021 after working on Biden’s presidential campaign as head of digital partnerships and serving as digital director of his inaugural committee, according to Linkedin. He’s previously worked for SVP, The Dodo, NowThis, Twitter and Google.

Tom replaces Rob Flaherty, who the White House announced was leaving his role in June.

In addition to Tom, Biden also announced Patrick Stevenson would be deputy assistant to the president and senior advisor for digital strategy, and Tericka Lambert would be promoted to deputy assistant to the president as the deputy director of digital strategy.

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The US has fallen behind other nations in Asia and Australia when it comes to drone research and testing which has resulted in greater human risk for flying in dangerous conditions, Dr. Catherine Cahill, Director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) told FedScoop.

In particular, Cahill noted that a delay in granting permissions to test the technology has stymied progress. After a decade-long effort, her research division at the University of Alaska was last month given special FAA waiver permits to determine the reliability of all drones under 300 pounds that commercial companies and research organizations seek to use in trial flights. 

Cahill said: “The delay in giving us [testing] permissions was a major roadblock in the commercial use of drones and its development. It was a tremendous gap, something we should have had permission for years ago.”

Commercial drone companies have also vocalized that the US has slipped behind other countries when it comes to drone and unmanned aircraft system authority and permissions.

Speaking alongside Cahill at a House Transportation and Infrastructure committee hearing Thursday, Adam Woodworth, CEO of Wing, Google’s drone delivery-focused subsidiary, said the United States risks missing out on opportunities for innovation in the sector. The executive cited Australia as a jurisdiction where more permissive testing rules have helped to spur innovation.

He said: “In very broad strokes it comes down to being predictable and pragmatic, there are aviation performance based standards and outcomes based rulemaking… Australia and their aviation regulator was one of the first to adopt those standards and rulemaking and that presented a framework where we could go and do commercial delivery packages for compensation.”

However, the US had the first ideas and innovations with drone rules and policies that are now being executed in Australia, according to Woodworth.

“Interestingly enough, the idea for this came from the United States. So the idea around performance based rulemaking, the ideas around this sort of standards creation is an idea created in the US it’s just that the US has now fallen behind in implementation of it. That’s why we fly mostly in Australia today,” said Woodworth, whose company is expected to be capable of handling tens of millions of deliveries for millions of consumers by mid-2024.

Speaking with this publication, Cahill also said that a changing regulatory landscape, the increased pace of innovation and national security concerns were among key drivers of investment by defense industrial base companies. Last month, Booz Allen Hamilton’s venture capital arm announced an investment in drone detection company Hidden Level, which uses advanced radio frequency sensing technology to detect unmanned aerial systems.

“The technology is improving, the war in Ukraine, among other places, is showing us what we need to have because drones are being used so effectively over there. So if we want to protect our National Airspace System, how do we do this,” said Cahill.

“There’s a need for private investment and they’re beginning to see that especially on the military and security side, and the money’s gonna go where they think there’s opportunity. So between the military push and the civilian pushes, there’s a lot of focus right now on how do we protect critical infrastructure, national security, and our population from different challenges,” Cahill added.

Cahill, who is also a professor at the University of Alaska, said her drone center is one of the seven FAA-designated drone system test sites in the US who have been vying for a waiver from the regulator to operate beyond visual line of sight flights under the BEYOND program. 

The testing sites have been forced to prove in particular that commercial drones were not going to endanger the National Airspace System and airport safety.

Cahill highlighted that public funding of commercial drone testing sites and clear regulatory approval processes remain major roadblocks in the advancement and development of key drone technologies. 

“Money for public operators is a big part of it. A lot of these Beyond programs that we’re working with the FAA are not funded. It’s us funding and putting our own skin in the game right now to help further the use cases that are going to be of value to our population and to the National Airspace and to the US in general,” Cahill said. 

“Also having clear regulatory direction or how we get from point A to point B that doesn’t require us doing a certification that is equivalent to doing it for a Boeing 737. Those types of things are very important for us,” she added.

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The four companies, which were initially all invited to compete for the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability in November 2021, won’t be obligated any funds at the time of the award. Rather, the funds will be obligated on individual task orders that each company will compete for. The contract has a ceiling of $9 billion.

JWCC is designed to replace the maligned Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) and serve as the department’s enterprise cloud capability. It is being managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency.

Top officials have said it will be essential for future operations and enabling the Pentagon’s new way of fighting, dubbed Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

“JADC2 … is utterly reliant on having an enterprise cloud capability that operates in all three security classifications: top secret, secret, [unclassified], from the continental United States all the way out to the tactical edge,” John Sherman, DOD chief information officer, said last month.

Officials have previously explained there will be access to unclassified capabilities once awarded. About 60 days after award there will be access to classified services, and no later than 180 days after award, there will be access to top-secret and tactical edge services.

In the interim, have moved out on their own cloud efforts as some have said they are not and cannot wait for JWCC to be awarded. These include the Navy’s Black Pearl, the Air Force’s Cloud One and the forthcoming Army Enterprise Application Migration and Modernization contract (EAMM), which will be a roughly $1 billion multi-award, multi-vendor effort.

Despite that, JWCC will still have its place and won’t be a redundant effort on top of these other cloud initiatives, according to officials leading its development.

“JWCC is meeting specific capability gaps in the areas of having all classification levels — so unclassified, secret and top secret, as well as tactical edge capabilities that work in those denied latency or communication-deprived environments, again, at all classification levels,” Sharon Woods, director of DISA’s Hosting and Compute Center, told reporters in November. “So JWCC will provide those capabilities and more at scale. The services have matured in their cloud journey and delivered high-quality capabilities. And we see them as being complementary, not in competition.”

DISA’s director said that they hope when some of these cloud efforts have run their course, the services will turn to JWCC.

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Google will offer its Workspace collection of cloud computing tools for government agencies to deploy when breaches or attacks occur.

“This product is driven by past hacks and attacks on the government like SolarWinds and others that could occur again in the future. The government’s dependency on one software or set of tools could lead to a single point of failure and so they need to make sure they have backup plans in place,” Google Cloud Director of Risk and Compliance Jeanette Manfra told FedScoop.

She added: “We’re offering a new solution for those who want to have a backup plan if they get attacked and can’t use Office 365 or whatever software they’re using at the time. If you can’t trust your email because it’s been hacked or compromised then Workspace is ready for them – fully provisioned in advance.” 

Microsoft was one of the major entities that was compromised by the massive Solarwinds cyberattack by Russian hackers in 2020.

Microsoft, which according to industry estimates holds about 85% of the market share of the federal government’s productivity and collaboration software, is expected to be the biggest player in the industry that Google’s new offering would be a backup for. 

Google Public said in a statement that offering federal, state, and local agencies continuous access to email, chat, and videoconferencing systems “throughout a catastrophic situation is a top priority” for the company, especially since its invested in FedRAMP High and Department of Defense Impact Level 4 certifications which can give “federal agencies peace of mind.”

As a part of the federal government’s Presidential Policy Directive 40, which advocates that critical services are sustained in the event of an emergency—such as a natural disaster, a pandemic like COVID-19, or a major cybersecurity or ransomware attack—every U.S. government agency is expected to have a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) in place. More recently, Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also emphasized the need for COOP in its incident response playbook to strengthen cybersecurity for federal and civilian agencies. 

Manfra said the new Workspace offering was starting to roll out to a few local and state governments but didn’t specify the expected size and scale of the initiative in the coming months. 

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But as that marketplace has matured, federal agencies have increasingly turned to multicloud arrangements, looking to take advantage of offerings from multiple providers rather than locking themselves into the products of a single vendor.

Recognizing this appetite for more choice in the federal cloud marketplace, Google recently spun off its public sector-focused business line from Google Cloud to launch an independent division focused purely on federal, state and local governments and the education sector that can serve as an alternative, multicloud-friendly provider.

Karen Dahut, a federal technology industry veteran who spent a large part of her recent career leading Booz Allen Hamilton’s defense business, was named the first CEO of Google Public Sector in September.

Now, just more than two weeks into the job, Dahut spoke with FedScoop in an exclusive interview about her vision for delivering more of that choice into the federal marketplace and how Google hopes to inject the innovative DNA it’s known for in the commercial world into the federal government.

Editor’s note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

FedScoop: You’ve been in the CEO role now for roughly two weeks. How are you settling in with Google?

Karen Dahut: I will tell you that Google is such an American, iconic brand that the privilege of being able to take the great work that they’ve done for consumers, for commercial entities, for citizens, and apply that at a global level for federal government, state and local governments, educational institutions, is just, honestly, the privilege of a lifetime. You know, the last 20 years, I’ve been with Booz Allen, and I held a lot of different roles there. And there were two things that became very apparent to me in my 30-plus years in this industry. The first is that the advancements in technology have really demanded a different approach in government. And what I mean by that is, most government leaders find that their data is held captive in these very large, vertically integrated, monolithic systems. And it has less utility to them because they can’t integrate it at a more substantial level. The second thing is that most of our leaders in government, either they do have the experience of working with the ease of use of Google products and solutions or their kids have. And they’re demanding that same ease of use. And so when I thought about this role at [Google Public Sector], I thought, wow, it’s the perfect opportunity to really bring the power and magic of Google engineering into the federal government, because they’re ready for that transformation, and to really help them drive those digital transformations.

FS: You’re very early into your tenure as CEO, but what is your vision for this new organization? What’s the biggest thing you want to achieve as this organization is essentially getting off the ground and up-and-running?

KD: Well, it’s a great question. And I’ve given that a lot of thought, obviously. I mean, yes, I just started, but I had been thinking about this for a while. First things first, Google Cloud, and all of the tools that they have available on Google Cloud … it’s just a brilliant platform, right? It is scaled at planet-level scale. It has remarkable tools that it can leverage: Google Earth, Google Maps, these tools that we have become very accustomed to using. So the first principle of strategy is how do you bring not just cloud, but all of those additional incredibly accessible tools to significant federal, state, local challenges. The state of West Virginia is a good example. They switched from a Microsoft product to Google Workspace … primarily to enhance collaboration, because Workspace is truly a collaborative tool born in the cloud, native to the cloud, and it’s less expensive. They saved $11.5 million by making that switch. Another great example is that the [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] worked with Google to bring in Google Analytics and Google Cloud to help understand the potential impacts of climate change and predict those changes. So I share those examples with you because I think the opportunity for Google Public Sector is to listen to our clients, provide and enhance the choices they have available to them, and solution in partnership with them. Because all of these products that I’m talking about are already scaled tools accessible to the world. And our opportunity is to tailor them for specific use cases for our public sector clients.

FS: It’s no secret that the cloud market in the federal government is very competitive. How do you look to differentiate yourself from those companies that have come to dominate the federal cloud space?

KD: Yeah, it’s a reasonable question. And one, I suspect that I’m going to answer a lot. It’s certainly not a surprise to me or not unknown to me that we were a little bit late to the cloud game in government. And I think what we really want to focus on is, first of all, the government really wants choice. They don’t want to be emboldened to a single provider. So that’s important to understand. We also believe in the power of choice and the power of multicloud. Most government organizations are going to choose different clouds for different applications. We want to be one of those that they consider — we want to provide that choice. And in fact, our Anthos tool and solution really allows governments to switch workloads between different clouds, so you’re not wedded to a single cloud. And that is going to be our approach: to understand that government wants choice. We’re one of those providers, we believe we have some very unique capabilities, to provide them that choice, and then solution with them.

FS: You’ve spent much of your career focused on the defense space. How do you plan to use that experience as a guide in this new role, particularly as the Department of Defense has place great focus on moving to the cloud, namely though the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract and others?

KD: I am super proud to be a Navy veteran and having served. I follow in the footsteps of my father who served for 42 years, and my sister who served, so super proud of that service. I think that for defense specifically, there is so much opportunity to bring the power of data analytics and AI to bear on their big challenges like JADC2, Joint All Domain Command and Control. That is a data challenge. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to many people across the department and in the services and they are looking for ways to integrate that data that gives them better perspective and insight into the world and the threats that they face. And I truly believe that using Google’s products and capabilities, whether it’s Cloud, Maps, Earth, or all of those great capabilities in combination to solve for some of the challenges — not just in defense, but in civil agencies and the like — is super exciting. And I really have a fervent belief that once we can unlock the power of the cloud and the power of data and AI from that cloud, the sky’s the limit in terms of what we can do to support government.

FS: Are there other public sector-specific mission sets or problem sets that come to mind that Google’s solutions could be a good fit for?

KD: I think it’s always instructive to go back to some of the work that we’re doing in commercial because there are direct applications In government. So for example, Ford Motor Co. hired us to use data and AI to predict maintenance. You have probably heard this is a significant issue across the military services — how do they maintain their fleet or their tanks or whatever it may be … We believe we have a solution that can help them easily do that. One of the things that [Google Cloud CEO] Thomas [Kurian] said to me as I was assuming this role is: ‘There is a world of opportunity. Our challenge is going to be to focus in on the top areas where we believe we can, with rapidity, really help government.’ And so I think that’s what I’m going to be focused in on: What are the best use cases that we can solution with clients to bring to bear on their challenges?

FS: With security such a major focus in the federal government right now, particularly with zero trust, how does Google Public Sector plan to make that a key element of its work with agencies?

KD: Google pioneered the idea of zero trust and built the first-ever zero-trust architecture. So we are a cloud provider that has security built in from the outset. And that’s really important. We know that our government clients, and the degree of sensitivity of the data that is housed in that cloud, absolutely has to have assurances around security. And so we fundamentally understand that and have always built that into our products. The second thing that’s really exciting is the acquisition of Mandiant. You know, Kevin Mandia, is a force for good. He built an amazing company that is really based upon understanding the threat landscape, providing true, no-kidding incident response capabilities, has built an incredible threat landscape library and is building a security-as-a-service platform within Google Cloud’s architecture. So the combination of all of those components of security will beautifully serve, I think, all aspects of government, but more importantly, ensure citizens that may be using that cloud or enterprises within government that are using that cloud, that their data, their information is secure.

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The executive joins from federal contracting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, where she was previously president of the company’s global defense business.

In the new C-suite role, Dahut is tasked with expanding Google Public Sector’s presence in the the federal, state and local government markets and growing its education sector portfolio.

Dahut replaces Will Grannis, who designed and launched Google Public Sector as founding CEO earlier this year. Grannis returns to his role as CTO of Google Cloud at the end of October, when the transition will occur.

“Today, it is my pleasure to introduce Karen Dahut as the new CEO of Google Public Sector,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud said in a statement.

“With more than 25 years of experience in technology, cybersecurity, and analytics, Karen is a highly accomplished executive who has built businesses, developed and executed large-scale growth strategies, and created differentiated solutions across both commercial and federal industries,” said Kurian.

At Booz Allen, Dahut previously led the company’s $4 billion global defense business, which represented approximately half of the firm’s annual revenue. She also served as chief innovation officer and built Booz Allen’s strategic innovation group, which develops new services in cybersecurity, data science, and digital technologies.

Dahut started her career as an officer in the U.S. Navy and served as controller for the Navy’s biomedical research institute. 

Google created its standalone public sector division in June as a separate legal entity from Google Cloud operating as its own independent company with a board of advisers to help scale its services to more government agencies nationwide.

In recent years, Google has expanded its public sector presence. At the federal level, it has won large tech contracts on both the civilian and defense sides, including at the Department of Energy, U.S. Postal Service and Department of Veteran Affairs, as well as with the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Defense Innovation Unit.

The tech company recently bid on the Pentagon’s billion-dollar multi-cloud acquisition, the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), despite dropping out of the running for that procurement’s failed predecessor, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract due to reported ethical concerns.

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In an interview with FedScoop, the Google Public Sector CEO heralded the significance of the R&D agreement announced Sept. 13 between the tech giant and the Department of Commerce, and said it was the type of open-source project that would improve cybersecurity by encouraging more collaboration with security researchers on hardware design.

“The early numbers we have show that it’s probably going to be hundreds of times cheaper for researchers and manufacturers to yield designs than if they had to start from scratch or do this on their own.” 

The executive added: “So this public private partnership is really yielding more efficient, economically viable pathways and establish that leadership position for the U.S. in chip design manufacturing.”

Grannis spoke with this publication shortly after the announcement of the R&D agreement, which followed the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act.

As part of the recent agreement, NIST will create up to 40 different circuit designs for the chips, and the initial production costs as well as the first production run will be paid for by Google. The chips will be manufactured by Bloomington, Minnesota-based SkyWater Technology.

The R&D agreement is intended to support innovation by university and startup researchers, for whom the cost of developing semiconductor chips can often be prohibitive. NIST’s circuit designs will be open source, meaning that academic and small business researchers can use the chips – which are essential to the creation of any modern electronic device – without restriction or licensing fees.

NIST research physicist Brian Hoskins, who also spoke with FedScoop, said that to his knowledge, the SkyWater-Google partnership at present is the only domestic provider of an open-source process design kit for manufacturing semiconductor wafers.

“What we are interested in is providing a US domestically sourced manufacturing test vehicle, which we can distribute to the public without restriction or license. And so at present, this is the only way to do that. I think the important thing to realize is that members of the academic community have been asking for better access to the semiconductor supply chain for a while and we are listening to their needs and trying to respond to them,” Hoskins said.

Google and the Department of Commerce say the chip partnership is likely to make it significantly cheaper and easier for university researchers and smaller commercial manufacturers to create innovative chip designs for everyday products and specific federal government needs.

The new chip designs will provide bottom-layer chips with specialized structures for measuring and testing the performance of components placed on top of it. This includes new kinds of memory devices, nano-sensors, bioelectronics, and advanced devices needed for artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

“It would be very difficult to develop new memory technology if you can’t actually access, say an intermediate step where you maybe have the ability to prototype at the millions level, before moving on to a final product,” said Hoskins. 

“So that process, that challenge, is often called the tech transfer valley of death. The gap between academic research and the commercialization of technology. And so one of the things that we’re doing here is we’re bridging that tech transfer valley of death,” he added.

The latest partnership originated from a series of workshops hosted by the National Science Foundation on how to improve academics’ access to the semiconductor foundry ecosystem. At these events, NIST officials met with program managers at Google and realized that both organizations were working towards common goals in the area of chip manufacturing.

Grannis is the founder and leader of Google’s CTO Office and a seven-year veteran of the company. His prior private sector experience includes six years as a product manager at Boeing.

He added: “By participating in the research phase of chip design, we’re also now in this complete innovation loop where it’s not just about selling software to a government agency, but it’s also about participating in the design of frameworks and chip design.”

“That may actually advance an entirely new mission or use case for the government in ways that it’s difficult to predict. It could end up in quantum science and photonics, there are a number of application areas for this that are relevant to many government agencies and organizations, both in the research and development phase as well as the procurement side,” said Grannis.

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