Input from industry partners needed to maintain IC investments
Other preliminary statements note that the investment landscape document continues the efforts of the intelligence community (IC) to match its needs with those of industry partners, academia and other technology experts to ensure US national security.
The paper has also been a proven mechanism for relaying IC challenges to potential problem solvers and positioning the community to meet future challenges, the authors argue.
“Awareness of mission-related challenges is key to renewing and ensuring our nation’s intelligence advantage, and this landscape is one way for the IC to communicate with a range of stakeholders about our anticipated challenges to create the community of the future,” writes. John Beieler, director of the ODNI science and technology bureau.
“The Landscape documents IC challenges and relays them to potential solvers, and is a proven mechanism for positioning the IC to address future challenges,” he adds.
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IC needs fall into four categories
The IT needs listed in the document are divided into four categories:
- IC-wide analytical tools and methodology challenges, such as finding ways to avoid bias in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools
- IC-wide scientific and technological needs best met by a single program manager – e.g. learning more about tools that can be used to develop more than one type of weapon of mass destruction
- Multiple IC-wide scientific and technological needs best addressed by various IC program managers, such as analysis of nation-state instability and the risks it poses to US citizens and interests
- Cross-cutting scientific and technological challenges requiring wider public participation
Tasks requiring broader participation include developing or improving methods for “aggregating, analyzing and/or sharing financial data”, which can apply to multiple technology domains, including AI, computer science, data and forensics.
Needs in that category are often interdisciplinary and fall under the purview of multiple national intelligence programs.
The landscape paper notes that the ODNI Science and Technology Group “will seek to promote and defend some of these needs, subject to budgetary and staffing constraints, in the IC through FY2026.”
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Sharing information is the key to better investments
According to an analysis by FCWthe landscape document marks “a shift in the way the intelligence community tries to track technological research by making it more traceable not only to missions, but also to the person on the side of government who owns the challenge and whether they already or will not have to collaborate with other program managers within the IC or within the government.”
The analysis also shows that IC needs are greatest in AI, data, cyber, computing and sensor capabilities.
Dustin Gard-Weiss, deputy director of the ODNI’s national intelligence agency for policies and capabilities, elaborates on this in the document:
“To best position the U.S. intelligence community (IC) to meet future challenges,” he writes, “current decision-makers must anticipate over-the-horizon threats to our national security and create an integrated, collaborative, and systematic adopt an approach to community investment in science and technology.
“The landscape plays a vital role in sharing important information with industry partners, researchers and other technology developers whose expertise and agility will greatly enhance the IC’s ability to continuously deliver cutting edge capabilities in the current and coming era of rapid and disruptive technological change. utilize. †