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How people view this story is often colored by their view of how the Defense Department works, a kind of Rorschach test on Pentagon acquisition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe it\u2019s evidence, perhaps unfair, that the Chinese government is at least four years ahead of the United States in how it thinks about artificial intelligence. Maybe the Pentagon is taking steps to improve how it uses artificial intelligence and is ready to fully take advantage of the expertise on the subject that now resides in Silicon Valley. Maybe this is work the nation\u2019s largest defense contractors could already perform and haven\u2019t been asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Siebel has his own interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To comprehend how Siebel, 66, an expert salesman and an adventurer who was once attacked by an elephant, first attracted the attention of the Pentagon requires understanding the Defense Innovation Unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carter founded DIUx (now, initial experiments proven successful, just DIU) in 2015 with the thinking that the technology and the innovation the Pentagon needs for future battles won\u2019t exclusively come from the defense industrial base around Washington, D.C. Instead, the Defense Department needed to attract new businesses, specifically those tech and IT companies in California, to bid on its work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, DIU\u2019s headquarters are housed in a two-story brick Army building that sits in the shadows of NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center and its giant wind tunnels. On the inside, the meeting rooms carry Star Wars references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since its founding, occasionally lawmakers in Washington have questioned the success of DIU as a host of other organizations focused on future technologies have popped up. DIU received $30 million in 2016 and $10 million in 2017. The White House\u2019s budget request for fiscal 2020 asks for the organization to receive about $30 million for each of the next five budget cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But sources in the Silicon Valley tech community said shortly after DIU\u2019s arrival that the Pentagon staff was a walking example of what\u2019s described as \u201ctech tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That pejorative refers to the regular occurrence of officials, usually from the East Coast, wandering the offices of upstart IT companies with open office plans and casual dress codes to talk about what it could mean for their agencies or businesses, but without investing or signing on to become a customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, the organization has won over skeptics with a series of low-cost, high-profile contracts. In the cyber realm, the team has set up contracts with security firms, including one with Recorded Future, to learn more about cyber intrusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previously, federal agencies only had access to a small percentage of threat intelligence, but by purchasing information DIU was able to better understand open-source data associated with threat actors and shrink research times. The contract was only a few million of the Pentagon\u2019s $700 billion budget but was also used to incentivize other organizations to buy the information as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the software arena, leaders at DIU helped open Kessel Run, an Air Force laboratory that has reimagined software development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And one of its biggest successes, the example often cited by leaders in case studies and congressional hearings, has been with predictive maintenance and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Predictive maintenance is far from the science fiction future of robot overlords or Terminator vs. Iron Man debates popular in national security circles. The idea calls for essentially identifying system failure before it happens in order to repair before things breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysts at Global Market Insights guess the predictive maintenance and machine inspection segment in AI in the manufacturing market (not the defense market) is projected to grow by 44 percent annually between today and 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now consider that the average aircraft in the Air Force is about 28 years old and on any given day about 30 percent of the aircraft cannot deploy. The service wants to shrink those numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n C3.ai\u2019s first project with the Air Force looked at the E-3 Sentry, an aircraft that provides the service surveillance, command and control. The Air Force has roughly 40 of those aircraft, which were first designed in 1958. But C3.ai had no telemetry data to help predict when something would go wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll we have is basically unstructured data in textual form,\u201d Siebel said. \u201cThese consist of maintenance logs, which tend to be pretty messy and undecipherable. They also had flight logs, pilot logs and records from the maintenance system that might include oil inspections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n C3.ai ran all that information through a natural language processing program, took the text and extracted bits of information and stored it on Amazon Web Services\u2019 GovCloud. The challenge was that not every piece of information is valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTemperature doesn\u2019t mean much, but high temperature might be meaningful. Pressure doesn\u2019t mean much, but low pressure does. So, we were able to find those signals that correlated with system failure,\u201d he said. \u201cWe built the algorithms, designed the user interface, built the application, loaded all the data and trained the users. And brought the application live in six months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Siebel is proud of the timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo chance [the Air Force gets] its [request for proposals] out in six months. Zero chance \u2026 This is a testament to DIU; I mean it wasn\u2019t a big battle, it was a couple million bucks, right? [For] a fraction of the cost it takes to draft and evaluate RFPs, we delivered a production system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe last time the United States Air Force had a system in production out in six months would be World War II, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, it worked. Within six months, C3.ai had demonstrated a reduction of as much as 28 percent of unscheduled maintenance events for the E-3, according to a DIU fact sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the Pentagon awarded a similar contract for the C-5 Galaxy. Again, it worked. Siebel\u2019s team completed the project in six months. Then awards for the F-15, F-16, F-18 and F-35 joint strike fighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The work attracted attention in the Pentagon, including from Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the Pentagon\u2019s No. 2 uniformed officer, as well as Heather Wilson, the secretary of the Air Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March, Michael Brown, the managing partner at DIU, told Congress that his organization is working with the Pentagon\u2019s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to scale this type of predictive maintenance approach across multiple aircraft, as well as ground vehicles beginning with the Army\u2019s Bradley Fighting Vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is one of DIU\u2019s highest priorities for FY19 given its enormous potential for impact on readiness and reducing costs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Siebel and C3.ai are doubling down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While a few high-profile companies faced protests over working with the Defense Department, Seibel and C3.ai quietly suggested one of the Pentagon\u2019s most ambitious artificial intelligence programs to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In late 2018, C3.ai made an unsolicited proposal to bring the entire Air Force fleet on to the system. Siebel said Wilson\u2019s staff estimates it could lead to a 40 percent increase in aircraft availability. (C4ISRNET could not confirm that figure.) DIU\u2019s estimates say the department could save $15 billion annually if the program was scaled to DoD\u2019s aircraft fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cForty percent!\u201d Siebel said during an interview in his office in Redwood City, California. \u201cOh my God, if you\u2019re secretary of defense, and you have 40 percent more stuff than the day before, and what\u2019s a new F-35 cost? $100 million?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n (It costs about $89 million.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n But here\u2019s another way of thinking about it: $15 billion is at least four times the Pentagon\u2019s spending on AI programs alone for fiscal 2020. It\u2019s about 1.5 times what the Pentagon spends on netcentric warfare and the same as the entire Pentagon portfolio in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n National security experts suggest that the program could have wider implications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kara Frederick, an associate fellow for the technology and national security program at the Center for a New American Security, said the real value in C3.ai\u2019s work with the Air Force may be cultural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis collaboration, this idea of consistent data standards, the idea that you take the algorithm and upload it to the cloud and then it can be used to cross different components of DoD. It\u2019s that muscle memory that you\u2019re creating with this initiative that could be a bigger deal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis can help create that environment conducive to the behaviors that you\u2019re seeking to encourage for more efficient data processing, efficient use of these functions. \u2026 Instead of coming into varied bespoke systems, if you think about plug-and-play architecture, this is starting the ball rolling with some of those behaviors that are going to be used for a long time to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, if C3.ai secures a contract for the Air Force\u2019s entire fleet, it would likely mark one of the Pentagon\u2019s largest AI contracts to date. If such a contract reached tens of millions of dollars it could help entice other tech companies, including those in Silicon Valley, to reconsider doing business with the Pentagon, Frederick said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA couple million dollars? That\u2019s nothing. \u2026 I think a big number will raise some eyebrows in a good way and cause companies to say now the economic risk maybe worth it,\u201d she said. \u201cFrankly, the smaller, single-digit million dollars contracts are not going to make it worth it to some of these companies just for the privilege of working with the Department of Defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pat Kumashiro, a retired Air Force colonel who led the maintenance division for the service\u2019s logistics, engineering and force protection directorate and is currently director of the Air Force market at not-for-profit consulting firm LMI, said companies must demonstrate deep functional expertise in the area. For example, are there maintenance chiefs on staff who understand the inspection logs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClearly the pressures will be to go faster and improve scale. It\u2019s hard to slow down this fast-moving train,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat all of us want as taxpayers want is that they are not going to take unacceptable risks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The day I spoke with Siebel in February was the day after the Trump White House announced the nation\u2019s AI strategy and on the day the Department of Defense released its own long-awaited strategy on the topic. \u201cImplementing predictive maintenance and supply\u201d is one of four examples the Pentagon uses to discuss AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe will use AI to predict the failure of critical parts, automate diagnostics, and plan maintenance based on data and equipment condition. Similar technology will be used to guide provisioning of spare parts and optimize inventory levels. These advances will ensure appropriate inventory levels, assist in troubleshooting, and enable more rapidly deployable and adaptable forces at reduced cost,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pentagon strategy also formally notes the work with C3.ai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, Siebel sees predictive maintenance as a bridge to broader artificial intelligence applications. Most media attention in artificial intelligence has focused on science fiction\u2019s idea of killer robots. And perhaps rightfully so. During the tenure of former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the Pentagon chief put a premium on \u201cincreasing lethality\u201d for every budget item. Siebel suggests AI systems can lock onto a target 1,000 times faster than a human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou get into cyberwarfare? That\u2019s entirely an AI problem,\u201d he said. \u201cWe get into space command, these are AI problems. Now, will robotics play a factor? Absolutely. What do you want to send across a minefield? Do you want to send an infantryman? I mean, I don\u2019t think so. Who do you want to send into some cave in Afghanistan? Why would you want to send a human being when you could send a machine? I would say that these UAVs, these are robots, basically, right? Some are remotely controlled, but why put people, human beings, in jeopardy when you can just have a machine blow up? And so, you lose a little bit of metal and maybe it costs you, who cares how much it costs. It\u2019s just metal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finding targets is a touchy topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When they talk about AI, national security leaders have spent much of their time talking about Project Maven, an Air Force program that worked with Google to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify objects in drone imagery. The project inadvertently became the posterchild for the Pentagon\u2019s efforts on AI in Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the program received mainstream attention, in large part because Google contractors backed out of the project, folks in the national security community have stressed it was a pathfinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Siebel says Maven was \u201ca silly little trivial prototype. There was nothing to it. It was a silly project.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for his own systems, he says he will always build a system where humans are in the loop to make decisions, not robots or computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve never encountered anybody in the Pentagon or in any places where we play, whether it\u2019s [the Defense Security System, the Defense Information Systems Agency] that wants to have any discussion about an application where there isn\u2019t a human in the loop. All we do is use AI to inform a human being. With the same data that they would have otherwise. It\u2019s a MiG and we have it in our crosshairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in the next breath, he says, he recognizes not everyone will do it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So now back to that Rorschach test. Is the Air Force\u2019s predictive maintenance work playing catchup or is it an act of innovation in which service leaders are planting seeds for future bloom? Are Pentagon leaders forgetting the industrial base of defense companies in the Washington area?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Siebel\u2019s interpretation is more ominous: It\u2019s a war to win artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way this war is being played out is that you have this highly controlled five-year-plan totalitarian state in China that is controlling it top-down and making massive, massive investments. And these guys are smart as hell. They are highly motivated, and they throw a hundred teams of people at a time at this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd then you have this kind of very American idea \u2026 Rather than fix this through [requests for proposal] that we run through Lockheed Martin, and let these guys line up at the trough for these multibillion-dollar multiyear projects, can we get a thousand points of light of innovation going on everywhere and make little experiments and find the ones that work and latch onto them? Which is kind of a very, Western, American idea versus this totalitarian idea. It\u2019ll be interesting to see who wins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Air Force officials declined to speak on C3.ai\u2019s unsolicited proposal, but Siebel said the service is taking it seriously. This winter, he sat down with Wilson and Will Roper, the service\u2019s top acquisition official, at the Pentagon. He\u2019s also met with Ryan McCarthy, the Army\u2019s undersecretary. It is unclear how or even if the Air Force is pursuing the idea further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, Siebel looks at the aircraft\u2019s handwritten data logs and sees not just unstructured data, but a smarter way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know who I\u2019m betting on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Silicon Valley billionaire believes his artificial intelligence software can help the Air Force break down its upkeep and have more aircraft at the ready. Here’s how it could become one of the Pentagon’s biggest investments in AI to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":39817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,12,49,36,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3399],"class_list":["post-35010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-industry","category-techwatch","category-newsletters","category-pentagon"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"SHF5EHZGHRHPVE2QRMVLKOPZCU","arc_canonical_url":"\/it-networks\/2019\/04\/15\/could-artificial-intelligence-could-save-the-pentagon-15-billion-a-year\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IT-Tech-2-C4-copy.jpg.jpg\")
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