{"id":35113,"date":"2018-07-17T15:12:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T15:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2018\/07\/17\/air-force-looks-to-accelerate-artificial-intelligence-contracts\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:09:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:09:35","slug":"air-force-looks-to-accelerate-artificial-intelligence-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/it-networks\/2018\/07\/17\/air-force-looks-to-accelerate-artificial-intelligence-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"US Air Force looks to accelerate artificial intelligence contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Find out what the U.S. Air Force’s top acquisition official, Will Roper, thinks about replacing JSTARS.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

FARNBOROUGH, England \u2014 The Air Force is still not moving fast enough<\/a> to recruit the software talent<\/a> that it needs to harness emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, its acquisition head said<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don\u2019t think we’re attracting enough people. Whether they’re the right people or not, I think that’s a separate question. I’m not sure that we’ll be able to answer that until we’re working with a broader set of the industry base that’s working AI,\u201d Will Roper, the Air Force\u2019s undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logstics, told reporters at Farnborough Airshow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI contend that the companies driving AI are a different breed of company than those who drive evolution in hardware, especially companies that drove hardware that have gotten us to today\u2019s military. The paces are faster, turnovers are quicker<\/a>. Software is done in month cycles not year cycles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here for more from Farnborough Airshow 2018!<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past year, the Air Force has charted some successes and some failures in its attempts to integrate tech like AI and big data analytics with legacy hardware systems like fighter jets or air operations center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has established the Kessel Run Experimentation Lab, a group of industry and airmen in Boston that are iterating new capabilities for air operations centers. Instead of rolling out a large software package, the coders focus on app-like updates that can more rapidly insert new functionality into the AOC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s also suffered setbacks \u2014 most notably, Google\u2019s stated intention to withdraw from future Defense Department projects after some employees objected to the company\u2019s work on Project Maven<\/a>, a program would allow the Pentagon to use AI to review footage from drones. Some have worried that could have a chilling effect on future efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roper said that a big focus of his job is changing how the Air Force approaches software. In the past, software was a product that could be bought in cycles, just like a physical product like a missile or aircraft. Now, it\u2019s a service that must be reworked constantly, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou get a good set of coders in, they can push out so much code per month. You put them with the user that’s going to use the code and together they’re able to collaborate to make sure that the developer is creating something that the operator is using,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s working very well for us in Boston, and we\u2019re looking to expand that. That\u2019s the basic mechanism to move towards AI. We\u2019re going to need people that are working with us that are software people that are working, tweaking algorithms with the users that use them, and it\u2019s probably a different company than have worked with us over the past 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force has to get those companies under contract faster, in weeks instead of months, Roper said. It\u2019s looking for opportunities to use contract vehicles specifically delegated for small businesses and to use AFWERX \u2014 its outreach arm to nontraditional contractors who are creating promising commercial technologies \u2014 to introduce startups to the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\t