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The possibility of a U.S. Cyber Force moved one step closer to reality on Thursday after the Senate approved its version of a massive defense policy bill.

The $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act passed in a 86-11 vote. The Republican-led House narrowly passed its version of the legislation earlier this month, mostly along party lines. The two chambers will now go to conference to write a final compromise measure.

The Record first reported last month that the Senate bill included an amendment by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) that directs the Defense Department to tap the National Academy of Public Administration to conduct an assessment of establishing a seventh, cyber-specific military service.

The measure said the Academy will “conduct an evaluation regarding the advisability of establishing a separate Armed Force dedicated to operations in the cyber domain” and how it would “compare in performance and efficacy to the current model.”

It also contained a “prohibition against interference” that explicitly warns no DoD personnel “may interfere, exert undue influence, or in any way seek to alter” the study’s findings.

Pentagon leaders have resisted the idea of creating an independent cyber service, arguing that U.S. Cyber Command is still maturing and could prompt some of the existing military branches to downgrade the digital mission.

Yet it is precisely because of the six existing services, and their long-running inability to provide Cyber Command with personnel who are trained and equipped to battle foreign adversaries online, that some policymakers and others believe it is time to at least consider a Cyber Force rather than spend more time trying to get them in line via legislation.

The branches were called out for their substandard contributions last week by the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“It is widely understood that our Cyber Mission Forces are struggling with readiness shortfalls caused primarily by difficulties in training and retaining personnel in key positions requiring special skills,” panel chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) said during the confirmation hearing for Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, the administration’s pick to helm Cyber Command and NSA.

“In order to mature the cyber force and advance our nation’s capabilities to conduct cyber operations and support intelligence operations, the military services must provide qualified and trained personnel to your Command on time and at the beginning of their tours.”

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the panel’s top Republican, likewise charged the services “are providing personnel to Cybercom who lack necessary cyber skills, technical expertise and training.”

For his part, Haugh, Cyber Command’s deputy chief, said the digital warfighting organization has the resources to boost such training.

“One of the things that we want to ensure as U.S. Cyber Command is that we’re setting that baseline standard, so that we can ensure across the department we get the baseline right and allow the services to do that baseline training,” he testified.

It’s unclear if Gillibrand’s language will survive conference negotiations with the House and ultimately be included in a combined measure. The House bill did not include a similar provision.

One notable amendment to the bill was the fiscal 2024 Intelligence Authorization Act. The measure, which usually has been hitched to the defense roadmap, included provisions focused on China, artificial intelligence and election security. Specifically, it would require cyber penetration testing of voting machines and establish a vulnerability disclosure program for these systems.

MARTIN MATISHAK

Martin Matishak is a senior cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He spent the last five years at Politico, where he covered Congress, the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community and was a driving force behind the publication’s cybersecurity newsletter

Article link; https://therecord.media/military-cyber-force-provision-senate-ndaa

July 18, 2023 |By Matthew Sablan, Defense Acquisition University and Matthew Howard, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Acquisition & Sustainment)

Program Executive Offices from across the military departments and other DOD acquisition entities — including the Defense Innovation Unit, U.S. Special Operations Command and the Defense Health Agency — recently came together with OSD and Service acquisition leaders to discuss common challenges and solutions in delivering capability at speed and scale.

“The 2022 National Defense Strategy is a call to action for the acquisition community,” said William LaPlante, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. “As we leverage the full range of authorities and tools Congress has given us in recent years, it’s critical that we’re sharing best practices and implementing lessons learned from broad, service-agnostic challenges.” 

The PEO Summit, facilitated by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment and DAU, was held at DAU’s Fort Belvoir campus. The summit provided attendees the opportunity to network and “share perspectives on a daunting list of important and evolving problems,” DAU President Jim Woolsey said.  

Four panel discussions aligned with the National Defense Strategy shaped the day:  

• Using Middle Tier Acquisitions(MTAs) and transitioning to production  
• Implementing lessons learned from DOD’s support to Ukraine 
• Applying flexible contracting authorities 
• Delivering software at speed and scale  

MTAs have provided a mechanism for the acquisition community to rapidly prototype or field capabilities within five years. In emphasizing the importance of getting to capability production at a scale that is meaningful on the battlefield, discussion highlighted several programs, such as the Army’s M10 Booker Combat Vehicle and Space Development Agency’s low earth orbit satellites, that have leveraged MTAs to accelerate acquisition timelines. In continuing to build on progress made since MTA authority was granted to DOD in the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, PEOs focused on best practices for incorporating sustainment, test, and evaluation earlier within accelerated timelines.  

From the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the acquisition community is observing the first high-volume fight in years — something that requires DOD to organize for speed and scale while shifting from business as usual. The Senior Integration Group — Ukraine was lauded as a model for teamwork and rapid decision-making for contracting, requirements development and funding alignment.

PEOs also discussed working with industry at all levels of the supply chain, as well as with allies and partners, to alleviate production bottlenecks and increase flexibility and resilience for future surge requirements. Several attendees noted that mobilization for World War II actually began years before U.S. entry into the war, with efforts like the Lend Lease Act positioning industry to more easily shift into wartime production. In addition to examining the impacts of acquisition lead times, the discussion focused on sustainment — both projecting support capabilities to theater and increasing opportunities for collaboration with allies and partners.  

Service Procurement Executives likewise discussed the application of different contracting authorities, including how to inform and bring contracting into discussions earlier in the acquisition life cycle. While the range of available contracting authoritiesprovide PEOs with flexibility to meet a program’s unique needs and requirements, the panelists highlighted that one of the most important practices is determining the right contracting tool for the job. Examples from both the interagency response to COVID-19 and U.S. security assistance to Ukraine illustrated successful approaches for executing contracting actions more rapidly—often in only days or a few weeks. 

Software delivery was the center of discussion during the event’s final panel. PEOs shared their experiences incorporating agile design and updating existing waterfall-style software acquisitions. DOD’s focus is shifting to a more iterative process designed to get capabilities into the hands of warfighters as quickly as possible. Topics addressed included the use of digital twins and how to quantify earned value from software acquisitions. There was a general agreement that DOD, collectively, needs to focus on upskilling the workforce with digital literacy on concepts beyond Agile, such as gaining a better understanding of cloud computing, networks and cybersecurity-related topics. 

“What you all do as PEOs will be important for the next 50 years,” LaPlante told attendees. “Today’s wars and future wars are won and lost in program offices, and the teams you lead are vital to pacing the threat.”  

This was the first DOD-wide PEO Summit in several years, and LaPlante expressed that it will be a recurring event moving forward to maintain open dialogue, facilitate development of cross-service relationships, and ultimately improve acquisition outcomes.

Article link: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3462460/dod-renews-peo-summit-to-improve-acquisition-collaboration/

GAO-23-106222 Published: Jul 27, 2023. Publicly Released: Jul 27, 2023

Fast Facts

Agencies are increasingly investing in products that combine hardware and software—”cyber-physical systems”—to meet their mission needs. Traditional acquisition processes don’t support speedy delivery of these systems.

Leading companies get these kinds of systems to market quickly using iterative design, testing, and feedback processes. For example, data from simulations and tests are recorded in a “digital thread”—a tool that product teams can access in real time to quickly and continually improve the product design.

Our report outlines cutting-edge practices that can inform agencies’ ongoing efforts to improve acquisition performance.

Highlights

Why This Matters

Agencies are increasingly acquiring complex products, such as combined networks of hardware and software, which require new processes to design, produce, and deliver. GAO has found that to consistently deliver products with speed to users, acquisition programs for these networks—known as cyber-physical systems, such as aircraft and uncrewed vehicles—must adopt new approaches to evaluate performance and assess execution risks. Solutions, though, are unlikely to originate exclusively within government. Rather, identifying the practices that leading companies rely on to create cyber-physical products can provide crucial, cutting-edge information to acquisition leaders in government and, in turn, ultimately help frame changes to agencies’ acquisition processes.

For over 20 years, GAO has made numerous recommendations to the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to implement best practices for their major acquisition programs that underpin successful product development within leading companies. Over this time, agency implementation of these practices saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

Key Takeaways

Leading companies use iterative processes to design, validate, and deliver complex cyber-physical products with speed. Activities in these iterative cycles often overlap as the design undergoes continuous user engagement and testing. Knowledge about the product’s design is progressively refined and stored in a digital thread—a common source of information that helps stakeholders make decisions, like determining product requirements, throughout the product’s life.

As they proceed, product teams refine the design to achieve a minimum viable product (MVP)—one with the initial set of capabilities needed for customers to recognize value. They use modern manufacturing tools and processes to produce and deliver the product in time to meet their customers’ needs.

Leading Companies Progress through Iterative Cycles to Develop a Minimum Viable Product

Similar to Agile software development, the iterative structure leading companies employ when developing complex, cyber-physical products revolves around companies rapidly designing, validating, and delivering products. These cycles are:

• Design modeling and simulation: During design modeling and simulation, product teams feed technical data from fast, iterative design cycles into the digital thread. Stakeholders—including users, engineers, and manufacturers and suppliers—use this information to confirm that the team has captured the right requirements and is on track to meet them.  

Digital Thread Captures Information throughout the Product Life Cycle

For example, one leading company establishes models based on high-quality data from physical engineering, and captures input from users and manufacturers to feed into the models. Another leading company collaborates with users to identify the one thing that will differentiate the product from others, which then functions as an indicator of product performance. The outcome of design modeling and simulation is a solution—in the form of an MVP—that can then be validated through testing.

• Validation: Leading companies validate the design using prototypes—including combinations of physical and entirely digital prototypes. This prototyping incorporates all hardware and software components to test the product’s integrated functionality in its operating environment. Sometimes companies do this by developing virtual representations of physical products—a process known as digital twinning—or by using 3D-printed parts to test performance. For instance, one leading company uses a digital twin and virtual reality—immersion in a virtual environment using head-mounted displays—to enable users to step into a virtual vehicle and validate its design. Another leading company used a digital twin of an industrial motor drive to simulate its overload to the point of explosion. Compared with a physical test, which would have destroyed the prototype, developers could observe the specific point of explosion, locate defects, and fix them in the digital twin.
• Production and Delivery: Leading companies develop the design to the point that it satisfies user requirements for a MVP. Product teams then stop designing hardware for the given MVP and prepare parts for production, recognizing that they can add functionality through software updates later. Companies use digital twinning to understand optimal factory design and manufacturing processes before the design enters production.For example, one leading company uses digital twins to align parts assembly processes to ensure the robot handling the part can do so efficiently. The digital thread documents all the steps throughout production, from the design of the machinery and toolset, to the processes for manufacturing and assuring the product meets the company’s quality standards. Post-production user feedback informs further development of the next product.

How GAO Did This Study

Three congressional mandates provide for GAO to annually assess selected DOD, DHS, and NASA acquisition programs, projects, and activities. In order to respond effectively to these mandates, GAO conducted this work to understand (1) how leading companies structure their development of complex, cyber-physical products; and (2) the specific practices that enable this structure to properly function.

GAO identified 14 leading product development companies based on rankings in well-recognized lists; interviewed company representatives; reviewed supplementary documentation; and synthesized information to determine key product development structures and activities.

Full Report

Highlights Page (2 pages)

Full Report (60 pages)

GAO Contacts

Shelby S. Oakley

Director

oakleys@gao.gov

(202) 512-4841

Article link: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106222

When quantum computers become powerful enough, they could theoretically crack the encryption algorithms that keep us safe. The race is on to find new ones.

By Tammy Xu September 14, 2022

Cryptographic algorithms are what keep us safe online, protecting our privacy and securing the transfer of information.

But many experts fear that quantum computers could one day break these algorithms, leaving us open to attack from hackers and fraudsters. And those quantum computers may be ready sooner than many people think.

That’s why there is serious work underway to design new types of algorithms that are resistant to even the most powerful quantum computer we can imagine. 

What do these algorithms even do?

Cryptographic algorithms turn readable data into a secret, unreadable form so it can be safely shared on the open internet. They are used to secure all types of digital communication, like traffic on websites and the content of emails, and they are necessary for basic privacy, trust, and security on the web. There are several types of standard cryptographic algorithms widely used today, including symmetric-key and public-key algorithms.

Symmetric-key encryption is what people usually think of as encryption. It allows data and messages to be scrambled using a “key” so they are indecipherable to anyone without the key. It’s commonly used for securing sensitive data stored in databases or hard drives. Even data breaches that compromise databases full of sensitive user information aren’t as bad if the underlying data is encrypted—hackers may get the encrypted data, but there’s still no way to read it.

Public-key algorithms are important too. They help get around the fundamental drawback of symmetric-key encryption, which is that you need a secure way to share symmetric keys in the first place. Public-key algorithms use a set of two keys, one that is privately kept by the recipient and one that is made public. 

Anyone can use the receiver’s public key to scramble data, which only the receiver can unscramble using the private key. This method can be used to transfer symmetric keys and can even be used in reverse for digital signatures—because private keys are unique to the receiver, receivers can use them to validate their identity.

Why do these algorithms need to be quantum resistant?

Cryptographic algorithms are able to keep data secret because they are mathematically intensive to break. It would take a modern computer trillions of years to break just one set of encryption keys using brute force.

But in the 1990s, before quantum computers were ever seriously talked about, mathematician Peter Shor discovered that the way a theoretical quantum computer would work happened to line up particularly well with cracking the kind of math used in public-key encryption. 

Although no quantum computer existed at the time, other mathematicians were able to confirm that Shor’s Algorithm, as it became known, could theoretically be used by such computers to break public-key encryption. Now it’s widely accepted that once a working quantum computer with enough processing power is built, the algorithms we rely on today for public-key encryption will be easily breakable. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) predicts that quantum computers that can do this may be ready in just 10 to 20 years.

Luckily, symmetric-key encryption methods are not in danger because they work very differently and can be secured by simply increasing the size of the keys they use—that is, unless mathematicians can come up with a way for quantum computers to break those as well. But even increasing the key size can’t protect existing public-key encryption algorithms from quantum computers. New algorithms are needed.

What are the repercussions if quantum computers break encryption we currently use?

Yeah, it’s bad. If public-key encryption were suddenly broken without a replacement, digital security would be severely compromised. For example, websites use public-key encryption to maintain secure internet connections, so sending sensitive information through websites would no longer be safe. Cryptocurrencies also depend on public-key encryption to secure their underlying blockchain technology, so the data on their ledgers would no longer be trustworthy.

There is also concern that hackers and nation-states might be hoarding highly sensitive government or intelligence data—data they can’t currently decipher—in order to decrypt it later once quantum computers become available. 

How is work on quantum-resistant algorithms progressing?

In the US, NIST has been looking for new algorithms that can withstand attacks from quantum computers. The agency started taking public submissions in 2016, and so far these have been narrowed down to four finalists and three backup algorithms. These new algorithms use techniques that can withstand attacks from quantum computers using Shor’s Algorithm.

Project lead Dustin Moody says NIST is on schedule to complete standardization of the four finalists in 2024, which involves creating guidelines to ensure that the new algorithms are used correctly and securely. Standardization of the remaining three algorithms is expected in 2028.

The work of vetting candidates for the new standard falls mostly to mathematicians and cryptographers from universities and research institutions. They submit proposals for post-quantum cryptographic schemes and look for ways to attack them, sharing their findings by publishing papers and building on each other’s different methods of attack. 

In this way, they slowly weed out candidates that are successfully attacked or shown to have weaknesses in their algorithm. A similar process was used to create the standards we currently use for encryption. 

However, there are no guarantees that a new type of clever quantum attack, or perhaps even conventional attack, won’t someday be discovered that can break these new algorithms.

“It’s impossible to prove that you can’t break it—the nonexistence of a mathematical algorithm is hard to impossible to prove,” says cryptographer Thomas Decru. But “if something stands the test of time in the world of cryptography, the trust grows.”

Article link: https://www-technologyreview-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.technologyreview.com/2022/09/14/1059400/explainer-quantum-resistant-algorithms/amp/

By Michael R. Bloomberg

Jul 24 at 01:54 PM

The U.S. private sector innovates like no other. American companies quickly adapt to changing market demands, develop and integrate new technologies at scale, deliver products with exceptional speed and compete to win. This dynamic environment has become the benchmark of success in the modern world, but sadly and needlessly, it is often foreign terrain for the U.S. military.

At the center of the problem is the Defense Department’s antiquated acquisition system, which is hindering our military’s ability to acquire emerging technologies at the speed we need. The system, overseen by Congress and built decades ago, is entangled in a web of bureaucracy and outdated processes. That lack of agility is inhibiting our service members from having and using the superior technology that American companies are pioneering.

Bridging the gap between the private sector and the Pentagon is a crucial national security challenge that lies at the heart of the Defense Innovation Board, which I chair in partnership with other leaders in business, technology and the military.

Over the past year, I’ve spoken with a number of acquisition officers and civilians in the U.S. military. They know the problems better than anyone, yet they have surprisingly limited authority over their budgets and portfolios.

For instance: If they see a need for an AI-enabled data management platform, they might request to move money from one under-performing capability to that new, critical system. But then they wait for approval to proceed. And wait.

If they do get a green light, they must begin a long, cumbersome approval process that can take a year to complete — at that point, the technology may already be outdated.

That’s the problem acquisition officers confront day in and day out, and it’s costing us in the race to equip our troops with the tools they need to keep our country and our allies safe. Solving it requires Congress and the Defense Department to work together.

Recently, the Pentagon sent a legislative proposal to Capitol Hill that would greatly enhance its acquisition authority. The proposal, called the “Rapid Response to Emergent Technology Advancements or Threats,” would allow the military to acquire new capabilities before a final budget is approved by Congress each year. That way, the secretaries of the Air Force, Army, and Navy could fill gaps as they arise, without having to wait on the passage of annual appropriations.

The defense bill passed by the House includes a pilot program aimed at expanding the military’s acquisition authority, but the Senate has a chance to go further, by including a bipartisan amendment that would adopt the Pentagon’s original proposal. It’s a good example of how the Pentagon needs Congress to allow it to move more quickly in adopting new technologies — and when the final bill goes to the floor for a vote, the bipartisan amendment should be part of it.

At the same time, we can do more to empower leaders down the chain of command. Delegating more spending authority to acquisition officials, in addition to the service secretaries, would give the former greater flexibility in delivering the best possible technology and equipment to our service members.

Not every new technological tool proves beneficial, of course. There is always risk — financial and operational — in adopting cutting-edge technologies, but keeping the U.S. military the world’s foremost power requires greater appetite for risk.

And there is an important difference between risk-taking and recklessness. Business leaders support “failing fast” — developing new ideas, testing them, collecting feedback, and quickly determining whether to proceed or start anew.

There is no innovation without trial and error, with each failure serving as a learning experience. The more our military can “fail fast” in the Pentagon, the more we can succeed on the battlefield.

Speeding up the acquisition system would bring an added benefit: strengthening the defense workforce. Providing acquisition professionals with greater authority and agility can help retain and attract the top talent the Department needs. The government can’t compete with Silicon Valley on compensation, so it must do more to compete on mission and opportunity, by giving people the flexibility to use their skills and smarts in dynamic and exciting ways.

Over the years, the Defense Department has had some success bridging the public and private sectors, but there is much more to do. Meeting the challenges of the 21st century will take a more agile, adaptable defense acquisition process steered by a skilled workforce capable of keeping pace with their counterparts in private industry.

With help from Congress, defense leaders can take a page from the private-sector playbook, by “failing fast” and fostering a culture that values speed and innovation over business as usual. All who put their lives on the line for our nation deserve no less.

Michael R. Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, the chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board and the former mayor of New York City. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or Defense Innovation Board.

Article link: https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2023/07/24/to-innovate-dod-must-be-allowed-to-move-faster/

July 12, 2023 | Article

A digital twin is a digital representation of a physical object, person, or process, contextualized in a digital version of its environment. Digital twins can help an organization simulate real situations and their outcomes, ultimately allowing it to make better decisions.

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What would you do if you had a copy of yourself? A digital doppelgänger, identical to you in every way, in an accurate digital rendering of your home, workplace, neighborhood, or city? Even better: What if the digital version of you—your digital twin—was impervious to injury, pain, or embarrassment? The mind boggles at the possibilities. Suffice it to say, you’d probably be able to make decisions for yourself with a lot more certainty of the outcome.

In business, this heightened degree of certainty is extremely valuable—and emerging digital twins may help deliver it.

Put simply, a digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical object, person, or process that can be used to simulate its behavior to better understand how it works in real life. Digital twins are linked to real data sources from the environment, which means that the twin updates in real time to reflect the original version. Digital twins also comprise a layer of behavioral insights and visualizations derived from data. When interconnected within one system, digital twins can form what’s known as an enterprise metaverse: a digital and often immersive environment that replicates and connects every aspect of an organization to optimize simulations, scenario planning, and decision making.

There are a few different types of digital twins. First, there’s a product twin, which is a representation of a product. This digital twin can include products at various stages of the life cycle, from initial concept design and engineering through to full functionality—meaning you get live, real-time data on a product as if it’s in service. One great example of a product twin is something you probably already have in your pocket: Google Maps is a digital twin of the Earth’s surface. It links real-time data on traffic to help optimize your commute.

Other types of twins include production plant twins, which represent an entire manufacturing facility, or procurement and supply chain twins, also called network twins. And finally, infrastructure twins represent physical infrastructure such as a highway, a building, or even a stadium.

Digital twins have the potential to deliver more agile and resilient operations. And their potential isn’t lost on CEOs: McKinsey research indicates that 70 percent of C-suite technology executives at large enterprises are already exploring and investing in digital twins.

Read on to learn more about the value of digital twins and how to put them to use.

Learn more about McKinsey Digital and McKinsey’s Operations Practice.

What kind of value can digital twins bring to an organization?

One of the areas where digital twins can bring the most value is the reduction in time to market. Digital twins can allow for rapid iterations and optimizations of product designs—far faster than physically testing every single prototype. What’s more, digital twins can result in significant improvements in product quality. By simulating the product throughout the manufacturing process, it’s possible to identify flaws in the design much earlier. (“The companies that harness this first,” says McKinsey senior adviser Will Roper, referring to digital-manufacturing twins, “will really shake up the markets they’re in.”) And finally, by mirroring a product in service, it’s possible to create a single source of truth for how the design is functioning, allowing for real-time adjustment or redesign.

McKinsey has seen organizations post revenue increases of as much as 10 percent by developing digital twins of their customers, allowing those customers to fully interact and immerse themselves within a company’s product. Daimler, for example, has developed customer twins that allow customers to “test drive” a vehicle without ever getting behind the wheel.

How can digital twins affect an organization’s environmental sustainability?

Product digital twins can be particularly helpful in improving sustainability efforts. These digital twins can help organizations reduce the material used in a product’s design, as well as improve the traceability of a product to reduce environmental waste. Consumer electronics manufacturers have made significant improvements to sustainability by using digital twins, reducing scrap waste by roughly 20 percent.

Learn more about McKinsey’s Operations Practice.

How can an organization get started on building its first digital twin?

A key element an organization needs for implementing digital twins is digital maturity. This essentially means data: a high-quality data infrastructure that delivers reliable data from both testing and live environments, as well as the talent needed to build and maintain that infrastructure.

But that doesn’t have to mean that organizations need a complex or dynamic environment to benefit from a digital twin. Some companies are seeing success twinning products as simple as toothbrushes to gain real-time customer feedback. Then, once the initial use case is established, organizations can add more layers of information and real-time feedback to further improve the twin.

Building and scaling a digital twin requires a three-step approach:

1. Create a blueprint. A blueprint should define the types of twins an organization will pursue, the order for building them to maximize value and reusability, the way their capabilities will evolve, and their ownership and governance structures.
2. Build the base digital twin. A project team then builds the base digital twin over the next three to six months. This phase begins with assembling the core data product, which enables the development of visualizations and allows data science professionals to build out one or two initial use cases.
3. Boost capabilities. Once a digital twin is running, an organization can expand its capabilities by adding more data layers and analytics to support new use cases. At this stage, organizations frequently advance their twins from simply representing assets, people, or processes to providing simulations and prescriptions through the use of AI and advanced modeling techniques.

What does the journey from digital twin to enterprise metaverse look like?

Companies can start their journey to an enterprise metaverse with one digital twin, modeled after one data product. A data product delivers a high-quality, ready-to-use data set that people across an organization can easily access and apply. It should be a single, reusable source of truth, enhanced over time, that can serve as the basis for future use cases. Eventually, a first digital twin can evolve based on learnings from behavioral data, ultimately providing increasingly powerful predictive capabilities.

From there, an organization can create multiple interconnected digital twins to simulate the complex relationships between different entities. This can generate richer behavior insights for even more sophisticated use cases—and greater value. For example, an organization might connect a digital twin of its customers with retail stores, inventory, sales, and customer process flows. In doing this, the organization could carry out the following:

• simulate end-to-end impact of business and market changes on retail stores
• create a true omnichannel experience that provides for seamless pause-and-resume customer journeys across channels
• optimize store layouts by responding to shifts in customer preferences
• assess different compensation and staffing models by sales, employee performance, and the characteristics of local stores

Finally, an organization with a healthy digital-twin network can layer on additional technologies required to create an enterprise metaverse. A retailer could, for instance, connect the digital twin of its retail store to digital twins of its warehouses, supply chain, call center, and more until every part of the organization has been replicated.

Learn more about McKinsey Digital and McKinsey’s Operations Practice.

How are some companies already using digital twins?

Interest in digital twins, combined with rapidly advancing supportive technologies, is spurring market estimates for digital-twin investments of more than $48 billion by 2026. We’re already seeing some advanced implementations:

• Emirates Team New Zealand. A digital twin of sailing environments, boats, and crew members enables Emirates Team New Zealand to test boat designs without actually building them. This has allowed the champion sailing team to evaluate thousands—rather than just hundreds—of hydrofoil designs.
• Anheuser-Busch InBev. A brewing and supply chain digital twin enables brewers to adjust inputs based on active conditions and can automatically compensate for production bottlenecks (for instance, when vats are full).
• SoFi Stadium. To help optimize stadium management and operations, a digital twin aggregates multiple data sources including information about the stadium’s structure and real-time football data.
• Space Force. This branch of the US Armed Forces is creating a digital twin of space, including replicas of extraterrestrial bodies and satellites.
• SpaceX. A digital twin of the SpaceX’s Dragon capsule spacecraft enables operators to monitor and adjust trajectories, loads, and propulsion systems with the goal of maximizing safety and reliability during transport.

Learn more about McKinsey Digital and McKinsey’s Operations Practice, and explore digital-operations-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced:

• “Digital twins: Flying high, flexing fast,” November 16, 2022, Kimberly Borden
• “Digital twins: What could they do for your business?,” October 3, 2022, Kimberly Borden and Anna Herlt
• “Digital twins: The foundation of the enterprise metaverse,” October 2022, Joshan Abraham, Guilherme Cruz, Sebastian Cubela, Tomás Lajous, Kayvaun Rowshankish, Sanchit Tiwari, and Rodney Zemmel
• “Digital twins: The art of the possible in product development and beyond,” April 28, 2022, Mickael Brossard, Sebastien Chaigne, Jacomo Corbo, Bernhard Mühlreiter, and Jan Paul Stein
• “Flying across the sea, propelled by AI,” March 17, 2021

Article link: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-digital-twin-technology?

By U.S. Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory Office of Strategic Communications July 5, 2023

ADELPHI, Md. — Secretary of the Army Christine E. Wormuth designated the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory as one of the four Department of Defense Quantum Information Science Research Centers.

In a June 14, 2023 memorandum, the secretary said that DEVCOM ARL has in-house and extramural efforts in key Quantum Information Science, and QIS-enabled technologies and systems, such as atomic clocks and sensors for navigation, computers for classically intractable problems in information security and networks for connecting quantum technologies.

“The Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory is the Army’s primary research laboratory for QIS and has rapidly become a world leader in QIS,” the secretary wrote.

This designation means DEVCOM ARL researchers will participate in high-level government workshops to develop the next National Quantum Initiative and other national-level strategies, as well as engage with public and private organizations to accelerate research and development of QIS.

“This helps better position DEVCOM ARL and the Army in U.S. strategic discussions on quantum,” said DEVCOM ARL Director Dr. Patrick Baker.

The Army’s senior research scientist for Quantum Science, Dr. Fredrik Fatemi, said QIS research has many opportunities from near term to long term.

“QIS already forms the backbone of tools we take for granted, such as atomic clocks for the Global Positioning System. In the nearer term, we will see revolutionary advances in timekeeping and sensing, while in the longer term, quantum computing and other entanglement-enhanced quantum technologies could lead to disruptive technological surprise,” Fatemi said. “The spectrum of opportunity is broad both in time to maturity and in the application space.”

In 2018, the federal government passed the National Quantum Initiative Act, to “provide for the continued leadership of the United States in QIS and its technology applications. It calls for a coordinated Federal program to accelerate quantum research and development for the economic and national security of the United States.”

More recently, the Fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the service secretaries to establish or designate QIS Research Centers to move this technology forward.

Fatemi said DEVCOM ARL significant accomplishments include:

• The world’s first quantum sensor for receiving radio-frequency communications signals, which has received substantial attention across the services, industry and academia 
• Programs to develop a Low-Cost Chip Scale Atomic Clock for battlefield timekeeping 
• Substantial collaborative efforts across the U.S., including laboratories at the Adelphi Laboratory Center in Maryland, University of Texas at Austin and MIT in Boston 

“We also established the Quantum Technology Center in partnership with the University of Maryland in 2020, which has grown DEVCOM ARL’s footprint and impact in QIS,” Fatemi said. “DEVCOM ARL is also leading quantum programs across DEVCOM in advanced clocks and sensors, as well as several partnerships with industry.”

According to Fatemi, DEVCOM ARL’s extramural arm, the Army Research Office, has been shaping QIS research worldwide for decades. For example, without ARO, the United States would not have the industrial quantum computing companies that exist today, he said, as almost all are founded and led by researchers originally funded by ARO and their government partners over the past 30 years.

In-house QIS efforts increased significantly in 2015, and the laboratory has since published well over 200 research articles in QIS.

“Future research will impact the Army of 2040 and beyond by enabling the warfighter to measure better and decide faster,” Fatemi said. “It’s why QIS is a priority research area for the Army.”

Quantum Information Science focuses on nonintuitive properties of nature that typically only occur at microscopic length scales and below, he said.

“Harnessing these properties will lead to revolutionary advances in timekeeping and sensing, and it will result in disruptive capabilities in computing and communications for the Soldier,” he said.

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As the Army’s foundational research laboratory, ARL is operationalizing science to achieve transformational overmatch. Through collaboration across the command’s core technical competencies, DEVCOM leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more successful at winning the nation’s wars and come home safely. DEVCOMArmy Research Laboratoryis an element of theU.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. DEVCOM is a major subordinate command of theArmy Futures Command.

Article link: https://www.army.mil/article-amp/268072/army_designates_quantum_information_science_research_center

Alexandra Lohr@FNNAlex

July 20, 2023 4:17 pm

For the first time, classified cloud capacity will be shared between the Defense Department and the intelligence community. The two organizations recently signed a memorandum of agreement that will let them intermingle title 10 and title 50 funding in a top-secret cloud environment.

The service, part of DoD’s new Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), will be available in the continental U.S. (CONUS) first, with plans to eventually make it available outside the continental U.S. (OCONUS).

“That’s going to be huge moving forward, as an enablement for [Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control] CJADC2 to five eyes and the [defense industrial base] — just in general, classified cloud CONUS and OCONUS. I would say the partnerships, both for the five eyes and third-party capabilities, that’s going to be a huge one,” Ryan McArthur, Defense Information Systems Agency’s program manager for Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) said at a National Defense Industrial Association JADC2 conference Tuesday.

CJADC2 is the DoD’s concept for taking data from sensors and quickly converting it to actionable information used to make command decisions for military leaders and allies. Interoperability is one of the biggest challenges in making CJADC2 a reality. Creating secret cloud services that can be used by both the DoD and the intelligence community is a step forward for CJADC2 because it helps the two organizations move away from stove-piped systems.

One question that still needs to be worked out as the two organizations move towards sharing secret cloud access is authorizations. McArthur says DoD wants to get away from reciprocity agreements with the IC.

“What we’re working through between TS [top secret] and secret is who should own authorizations from a TS and secret perspective. Right now, we’ve done reciprocity on the AWS [Amazon Web Services] side,” McArthur said. “We’re actually working through agreements of who should have authorization if DoD transitions to having full authorization on the secret side, and I see maintaining full TS. But those are just in the beginning stages.”

The Pentagon awarded Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle JWCC contracts in December as part of a multiple-award contract vehicle that allowed the department to acquire commercial cloud capabilities and services directly from commercial cloud service providers. Moving forward, McArthur said having JWCC in place with a finite number of cloud providers will help standardize requirements and ensure that capabilities are interoperable and connected.

“Where historically we’ve had the entire responsibility for transport on our side, we can let some of the transport functions happen on the back end from the cloud service providers. They have robust worldwide networks and the technology that has been put in place will enable us to take advantage of those while still having our own native capability,” McArthur said.

Over the next five years, McArthur said he wants to see changes to enable JWCC to take advantage of third-party services to enhance the cloud provider capabilities.

“I’m doing a modification right now to the contract that is going to put in third-party marketplace software as a service (SaaS) for JWCC so you can come to the contract work through the cloud service providers to have access to SaaS offerings,” he said.

As DISA moves to test and expand its cloud capabilities, it devised ways to use a DevSecOps model to change the way acquisition teams worked and make them more agile by automating the integration of security in the software development lifecycle. It also simplified the task order process to make it user-friendly and less time-consuming.

“What we’re trying to do with our task order process is change how we’re doing normal acquisitions from the paper process. And we’re changing it to an actual front end application process,” McArthur said.

Article link: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2023/07/intelligence-community-and-defense-department-to-share-classified-cloud-services/?readmore=1

The Defense Health Agency issued the DHA Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2023-2028.

It’s a forward-thinking plan that focuses on innovative and modern solutions. The plan drives the Agency’s efforts to modernize and stabilize our health care system. These efforts serve:

• Military departments.
• Combatant commands.
• Our 9.6 million beneficiaries.

We are transitioning military health care into a more person-centric and integrated system. This brings greater value to our beneficiaries while keeping our medical readiness. 

We’ll do this by delivering cutting-edge:

• Technologies.
• Products. 
• Services.

We’ll provide extraordinary experiences and exceptional outcomes to all beneficiaries:Anytime, Anywhere – Always.

Mission

The Defense Health Agency supports our Nation by improving health and building readiness—making extraordinary experiences ordinary and exceptional outcomes routine.

Vision

Unrelenting pursuit of excellence as we care for our joint force and those that we are privileged to serve. Anytime, Anywhere—Always.

Priorities

Enabling Combat Support to the Joint Force in Competition, Crisis, or Conflict

Deliver agile and scalable combat support capabilities to the Combatant Commanders and Joint Force through operation of agreed upon clearly defined functions in competition, crisis, or conflict. Listen better, address comprehensively, and respond with urgency to challenges—and bring flexible solutions, to any place around the globe that our mission requires.

Building a Modernized, Integrated, and Resilient Healthcare Delivery System

Achieve new levels of excellence by fully leveraging emerging scientific and technological advancements, expanding partnerships, and adopting new models of health and wellness to optimize the health and care experience of our beneficiaries while improving preparedness of our medical teams. Use authorities to continuously pilot demonstration projects that reward outcomes over production, value over volume, and optimize delivery options to provide information, care, and transparency using the most appropriate venues for our beneficiaries, patients, and stakeholders.

Dedicated and Inspired Teams of Professionals Driving Military Health’s Next Evolution

Create a fulfilling and revitalizing workplace where purpose drives performance, people are the primary focus, and the principles of high reliability nurture and energize each individual, driving the entire organization in support of our pursuit of excellence.

Strategic Functions & Initiatives

Combat Support

Delivering scalable and agile solutions around the globe.

• Provide scalable and agile capabilities to meet validated Combatant Commander requirements.

Healthcare Delivery

Providing excellent patient-centered, evidence-based care.

• Optimize healthcare delivery in the new paradigm.
• Leverage technology to improve the patient experience.
• Fully integrated healthcare delivery system for the person.

Enterprise Support

Enabling optimal combat support and healthcare delivery capabilities for beneficiaries and stakeholders.

• Accelerate transformative innovation throughout the DHA enterprise by rapidly implementing new and emerging technology in the delivery of healthcare.
• Accelerate modernization of medical readiness and care through integrated research, acquisition, logistics, and contracting. 
• Effective and timely acquisition, development, retention, and management of Agency’s total workforce.
• Drive decision making at all levels of the organization with data.

Cross Functional Initiative

Implement Ready Reliable Care

Article link: https://www.health.mil/About-MHS/OASDHA/Defense-Health-Agency/DHA-Strategic-Plan

By ALEXANDRA KELLEYJULY 21, 2023 05:00 AM ET

While the Biden administration is working to engage in voluntary commitments with Silicon Valley, a planned executive order will codify next steps in securing the emerging technology.

The Biden administration and several leading artificial intelligence technology companies have entered an agreement to prioritize safety in their products, the latest in President Joe Biden’s effort to bring some level of regulation to private sector emerging technology. 

Announced Friday, companies including Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI all committed to three goals to ensure their AI products meet adequate safety levels before hitting the market.

The three commitments include ensuring a product is safe before it goes to market, incorporating security as an inherent design feature and earning public trust through public reporting on AI products’ use limitations.

“To make the most of AI’s potential, the Biden Harris administration is holding the industry to the highest standards to ensure that innovation doesn’t come at the expense of Americans rights and safety,” a White House official said during a Thursday press call.

A forthcoming executive order will further codify this “critical next step” to manage AI risk, and will work on a domestic level to advance bipartisan legislation on AI regulations and engage in international standards discussions on AI systems’ usage.

Much like the recently-announced Cyber Labeling Program, internal and external security validation and audit procedures will confirm if these companies are complying with the White House’s new agreement. 

The commitments emphasize transparency on how AI products and models are intended to be used. In addition to requesting formal publications on systems’ limitations and liabilities, companies are also requested to document potential biases and societal risks associated with using their AI products. 

Participating companies will also be asked to invest in cybersecurity best practices and insider threat safeguards. The agreement also requests that AI model weights — value components that are used to train AI systems — be secured and evaluated. 

The administration also requested AI manufacturers include watermarking in their systems to reduce deception amid generative AI content. The forthcoming watermarking protocol will apply to both audio and visual content to distinguish AI-generated content from specific user-generated content. The administration official said there is “technical work to be done” on developing the system, but will ultimately be “both technically robust and sound, but also easy for users to see.”

The potential watermark would be embedded in the AI software and act as a signature for any content it creates.

Despite the thoroughness of the new agreements, the White House is still working on more formal legislation to continue progressing compulsive regulations. 

“I think we know that legislation is going to be critical to establish the legal and regulatory regime to make sure these technologies are safe,” the administration official said. “We’re already engaged directly with members of Congress of both parties on these issues.”

Biden has been working to engage tech companies amid the rapid growth of generative AI software like ChatGPT, inviting several leading CEOs to the White House back in May to open talks on how to create safe AI systems. 

“We recognize that this is the next step that we are taking, but certainly not the last step,“ the official said.

Industry trade groups like The Software Alliance — also known as BSA — reacted positively to the news, noting that anthropomorphic generative AI systems hinge on public confidence. 

“Today’s announcement can help to form some of the architecture for regulatory guardrails around AI, along with proposals advanced by BSA to set rules for high-risk AI systems that involve concerns around bias and discrimination,” a spokesperson for The Software Alliance said in a statement. “Enterprise software companies look forward to working with the administration and Congress to enact legislation that addresses the risks associated with artificial intelligence and promote its benefits.”

Article link: https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2023/07/7-tech-companies-agree-white-houses-new-trustworthy-ai-commitments/388717/