NSA Looks to Hybrid Cloud Initiative as Future Cyber Model

The National Security Agency’s Hybrid Compute Initiative (HCI) represents the future of tailoring industry advancements to NSA’s mission, Cybercom Commander and NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh said Thursday at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit in Washington, D.C.  

“The Hybrid Compute Initiative is a really good example of what it will look like for our future,” said Haugh. “There are going to be some very unique technology things that will be bespoke within the intelligence community, but we have to be able to leverage the rapid advancements that are occurring in industry.”

Launched in 2021, HCI focuses on using commercial-based cloud computing capabilities in addition to maintaining some operations and data internally on servers. Commercial solutions within HCI must fulfill agency requirements for capacity, security and scalability.

Haugh added that NSA intends to follow industry’s rapid evolution in cloud security to ensure the agency is up to date.

“We cannot ask industry to adapt to us. We have to adapt to industry so that we can take every update and every advancement and leverage them in a more rapid and clear way,” said Haugh.

Haugh said that HCI can be a blueprint for NSA to deliver capability in conjunction with the rapid advancement in commercial technologies like generative artificial intelligence.

“We really see [HCI] as a future model. Because for us, it’s all going to be about speed,” he added. “Certainly that is what industry is capitalizing on.”

Haugh also cited NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center (CCC) as critical to cooperation with the defense industrial base. Launched in 2020, the center shares actionable, contextualized threat intelligence with industry partners, and Haugh said its success is now influencing Cybercom’s approach to industry partnerships.

“We see [collaboration with industry] as foundational to be able to defend the department’s interest in cyberspace,” said Haugh. “Today, that’s over 1,200 partnerships through [CCC]. Increasingly, the Defense Department is also asking the U.S. Cyber Command to be able to grow partnerships in this area so that we can, every day, work with our industry teammates because this is a very unique domain.”