Navy, Marines Set to Release Joint AI and Data Strategy

The Navy and Marine Corps are partnering on a joint AI and data strategy later this year to tackle the mounting challenge of the rapid growth of data that is outpacing the services’ ability to process and act on it, leaders said at last week’s Maritime IT Summit in Norfolk, Virginia.

The strategy will outline how the services can better synthesize, analyze and use the vast troves of data collected by sensors on equipment like aircraft, drones and surface ships.

Rethinking the ATO Timeline

Department of the Navy (DON) Chief Data and AI Officer Stuart Wagner warned that data collected by sensors often is never downloaded to locations where it could become actionable, but rather overwritten or deleted entirely.

Wagner said the solution could come through automating security classification procedures or bypassing the authority to operate (ATO) process entirely to get data into the right hands faster. Under the current ATO process, it could take defense leaders months to get final approval, a timeline Wagner said is wildly outdated to the current battlefield landscape, where measures and countermeasures are deployed within a sub-24 hour period.

“Harnessing automatically collected data and AI to expedite learning and adaptation is table stakes,” Wagner said at the event. “It’s not going to work in real time if we have humans that are reading security classification guides and other policy documents that tell you the rules of sharing.”

Inside the Joint AI and Data Strategy

Wagner said the plan will consist of six broad goals, including improving data management and infrastructure; rapidly turning AI pilots into operational systems; bolstering the DON workforce’s AI and data skills; and increasing collaboration with outside partners like industry, academia and foreign allies.

The Marine Corps has already kickstarted its AI strategy this month with the release of its inaugural AI implementation plan that will transform the service into an AI-enabled force by 2030. The plan serves as a comprehensive roadmap for integrating AI across warfighting functions, business processes and decision-making at the tactical edge.

“The AI plan outlines a multi-phase approach to building an AI-competent workforce,” plan co-author Marine Corps Service Data Officer and DON Deputy Chief Data Officer Colin Crosby told GovCIO Media & Research. “The Marine Corps is embracing a risk-tolerant, experimentation-driven culture (complete with dedicated innovation environments) to enable warfighters to prototype, iterate and validate AI tools under realistic conditions, thereby forging trust through both tangible successes and instructive failures.”

“We are building a growing community of ‘doers’ that are ready to accelerate the implementation, integration and adoption of AI in direct support of the warfighter,” plan co-author Marine Corps Service Data Office AI Lead and Deputy Commandant for Information Capt. Christopher Clark said in a LinkedIn Post.