The Office of Strategic Capital announced the notice of funding availability Monday, laying out eligibility criteria and an application process for industrial base companies interested in applying for a piece of the $984 million appropriated for loans. The investments could range from $10 million to $150 million, according to the notice, published in the Federal Register.

Specifically, the program is looking to invest in “the construction, expansion, or modernization of commercial equipment in the United States” that will in some way support the development of 31 critical technologies laid out in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. The list of technologies includes autonomous mobile robots, cybersecurity, data fabric, a variety of microelectronics applications, mesh networks, quantum computing and more.

The notice explains that OSC “aims to build on successful examples of administering efficient, cost-effective financial tools to advance national security priorities. By aligning government and private sector incentives around technologies vital to national security and economic interests, DoD aims to use the power of the market and economic competition to attract the capital required for critical technology investment.”

“With this Notice of Funding Availability, OSC establishes itself as a credible lending partner for U.S.-based companies that manufacture and produce critical technology components,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in a prepared statement. “This demonstrates that DOD is dedicated to using every tool in our toolbox to secure America’s and our military’s enduring technological advantage.”

Summarizing the program’s eligibility and selection criteria, the notice says investment decisions will be based on “compliance with statute, the extent to which an investment supports U.S. national security or economic interests, the impact that direct loans would have on the project or transaction, and the creditworthiness of the investment, among other factors OSC will evaluate in the application process.”

Interested parties — which include individuals, companies, partnerships, trusts, governmental entities and more — are invited to submit the first part of the application for loans by Jan. 2, 2025. The Office of Strategic Capital will then invite select entities that prove eligibility and project or transaction suitability to submit a second application. Funding from the appropriations will remain available through Sept. 26, 2026.

The notice of funding availability marks the first time the Office of Strategic Capital has set out to issue private investments since its establishment in December 2022. Congress, in December 2023, officially enacted the office with the signing of the 2024 NDAA into law. Appropriators then gave OSC its first funding for loans this past March.

While a key function of the office is to support the commercialization and scaling of technologies that could benefit defense and national security, it is also strategically meant to deter innovative American companies from seeking capital that may support the work of the United States’ strategic competitors.

“Through these congressional authorities and appropriations, the DoD now has proven financial tools to enable millions of dollars of investment in national security priorities at limited cost to the Department and the taxpayer,” OSC Director Jason Rathje said Monday. “OSC’s implementation of its congressional mandate will ultimately increase both public and private investment to secure a robust and resilient U.S. industrial base.”

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Broadly, quantum information science (QIS) and related technologies encompass the investigation and application of complex phenomena happening at atomic and subatomic levels to process and transmit data and information. Scientists and experts expect the still-evolving field will enable transformational science, engineering and communication assets as early as this decade — particularly for the Department of Defense.

DefenseScoop recently asked Pentagon observers with quantum expertise to weigh in on the significance of the QIS inclusions that did (and did not) make it into the 2024 NDAA.

“Would we have liked to have seen more? Of course — a bigger overall quantum budget with more quantum computing purchases to increase DOD’s exposure to the technology and send a stronger demand signal would have been great,” Paul Stimers, an attorney and member of Holland & Knight’s Public Policy and Regulation Group who also leads a coalition of quantum computing, communications and cryptography companies working to advance U.S. leadership in the space, told DefenseScoop.

“But this is a very good next step and we understand the tremendous budgetary pressures on the NDAA this year (two wars, inflation/interest rates, recruiting challenges, shipbuilding, etc. etc. etc.),” Stimers added in an interview over email. 

According to a fact sheet from the Senate Armed Services Committee, Congress’ bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the defense policy bill “authorizes increased funding for a number of initiatives, including a distributed quantum networking testbed, [and the] development of a next-generation ion trap quantum computer at the Air Force Research Laboratory.”

“The quantum networking testbed is a relatively small investment that will help prove out quantum networking, an area where China has led,” Stimers noted.

The more than 1,700-page legislative text also approves a provision that requires the Pentagon to set up a new pilot program geared specifically toward quantum computing capabilities that hold a lot of promise to be developed and deployed in the next two years or less.

“The quantum pilot program will provide a dedicated focus on use case identification for near-term application development, something not included in any other NDAA,” Allison Schwartz, global government relations leader at quantum computing systems producer D-Wave, told DefenseScoop. 

The company and its customers have a “long history working with the DOD on quantum applications” and hardware, she confirmed.

In Schwartz’s view, the newly directed quantum pilot program will push the Pentagon to expand “its historically narrow focus beyond gate-model quantum computing and consider all viable quantum computing systems, including annealing quantum computing and quantum-hybrid applications” when developing demonstrations, proof of concepts, and pilots. 

While “gate-model” and “annealing” refer to different types of quantum computer designs, “quantum-hybrid applications” essentially combine quantum and classical computing systems.

“The U.S. government must consider all quantum technologies to meet the needs of the military, including logistics and transportation challenges, optimizing autonomous and robotic vehicles, tracking space debris, and emergency response. This program will help accelerate use of near-term quantum technologies by the U.S. government which is important because other global leaders are already building applications that benefit defense and national security such as the Australian Army for emergency response re-supply, and tsunami evacuation routes in Japan. In the private sector, examples include the SavantX application for optimizing a cargo pier at Port of Los Angeles and Davidson Technologies for threat detection,” Schwartz told DefenseScoop.

Down the line, this new pilot may require additional funding via defense appropriations processes.

“The pilot program will be directed through [a federally funded research-and-development center], and should incorporate small companies and non-traditional government contractors, as much of the advancement in quantum application development is coming from those entities,” Schwartz said. 

“Now we must ensure the DOD begins the important process of identifying problems that could benefit from today’s quantum computing. D-Wave and the rest of the quantum industry stand ready to partner with the DOD by helping to identify and prioritize the best use cases for today’s quantum technology, so we may accelerate the benefits to help achieve mission objectives,” she added.

In a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the congressional armed services committees, the Quantum Industry Coalition — led by Stimers — noted the need for the type of pilot program that was included in the NDAA.

“A focus on near-term applications will help avoid the natural tendency toward long-term and theoretical research,” Stimers told DefenseScoop.

The group’s letter also spotlighted the coalition’s backing of other quantum topics for the policy bill, including but not limited to: support for developing the quantum workforce; quantum computer acquisition; development and deployment of post-quantum cryptography; and investment in a distributed quantum networking testbed.

“Workforce development is a critical factor for the quantum industry across the board. It’s important that DOD begins acquiring quantum computers both to send a demand signal to the private sector (unlocking further private investment and leveraging taxpayer funding) and to enable experimentation and use-case development within DOD. Post-quantum cryptography is an immediate need, as adversaries are currently stealing encrypted data for future decryption by quantum computers,” Stimers explained.

Overall though, he said the coalition is pleased with the provisions that made it into the NDAA.

“We appreciate that Congress is helping ensure that DOD invests in potentially game-changing quantum technologies that will help us win, and thus not have to fight, the next war,” Stimers said.

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Department of Defense officials updated DOD Directive 3000.09 in early 2023, marking the first time the language of the policy was officially changed since 2012. Broadly, the rule sets the processes and identifies the senior officials responsible for examining and approving the development, fielding and application of lethal autonomous platforms that can engage military targets without troops intervening. Since that update earlier this year, the Pentagon has not verified whether any systems have been or are currently going through the review process.

The next time 3000.09 is revamped, Congress wants to ensure it is informed.

According to text of the fiscal 2024 NDAA conference report, which details all the provisions that did and did not make it into the final bill text, lawmakers moved to mandate that: “Not later than 30 days after making a modification to Department of Defense Directive 3000.09 (relating to autonomy in weapon systems) the Secretary of Defense shall provide to the congressional defense committees a briefing that includes — (1) a description of the modification; and (2) an explanation of the reasons for the modification.” 

Elsewhere in the new 3,000-plus page conference report, Congress members also articulate their expectations that the deployment of autonomous capabilities for defense and military operations will not be rare or uncommon in the near future. 

“The conferees note the increasing use of autonomous capabilities throughout the Department of Defense and believe that utilization of such capabilities will grow more essential and widespread in the years to come. The conferees believe the Department should prepare for the proliferation of autonomous systems, including by determining how to best govern the development, testing, procurement, and deployment of autonomous systems,” they wrote, for instance, regarding another provision that was considered by the chambers but didn’t make it into the compromise version of the NDAA. 

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Under the directive, which was included in the compromise draft of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the secretary defense must conduct a study “to assess the feasibility and advisability of transferring all covered space functions of the National Guard to the Space Force,” according to the bill text. 

The study must include an analysis and recommendations of three possibilities — maintaining the current model that has the Air National Guard units and personnel performing space functions; folding those functions, units and personnel to the Space Force; or establishing a new National Guard component of the Space Force that would instead perform those functions. 

In June, the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee initially moved legislation forward that would create a Space National Guard under the 2024 NDAA. However, the Senate’s version of the defense bill differed from House — instead calling for the Pentagon to contract a federally funded research-and-development center to conduct an independent assessment of the issue.

The compromise legislation noted that the House receded but added an amendment that would require the secretary of defense to conduct the feasibility study rather than an independent organization.

Since the Space Force was established in 2019, the possibility of standing up a Space National Guard has been up in the air. As it stands, Air National Guard units conducting space operations do work for the Space Force despite not being directly tied to the nascent service. 

Advocates of creating a Space National Guard argue that standing up such an organization would be fairly inexpensive, allow guard members better perform their missions and deliver new capabilities.

But a previous proposal led to a 2021 analysis by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which estimated that it would cost $500 million annually to establish a Space National Guard and just lead to more bureaucratic red tape at the Pentagon. As such, the proposal was blocked by the Biden administration.

The new legislation clarifies that “space functions of the National Guard” include all units, personnel, equipment and resources currently in the Air National Guard that are either essential to a “core space-related function” or at least integral to the Space Force’s mission. Those functions will be defined by the secretary of the Air Force and the chief of space operations.

Along with the cost-benefit analysis of each possible outcome, the assessment should outline “any risks or benefits to the mission or readiness of the Space Force, including the ability of the Space Force to meet applicable objectives of the National Defense Strategy, that may be presented by transferring or consolidating units of the Air National Guard,” the legislated stated.

If passed by lawmakers, the secretary of defense will be required to provide an interim briefing with the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee by Feb. 1. The final, unclassified report would be due to the committees no later than March 1.

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The Department of Defense has used bug bounty programs to find cyber weaknesses by incentivizing white-hat hackers to hunt for them. Now, lawmakers want a similar concept to be applied to AI models.

“Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act and subject to the availability of appropriations, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer of the Department of Defense shall develop a bug bounty program for foundational artificial intelligence models being integrated into the missions and operations of the Department of Defense,” states the conference report on the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that was released this week.

For the bill, lawmakers define a foundational AI model as “an adaptive generative model that is trained on a broad set of unlabeled data sets that may be used for different tasks with minimal fine-tuning.”

The CDAO would be able to collaborate with leaders of other federal departments and agencies that have cybersecurity and AI expertise on the effort.

No later than one year after the enactment of the legislation, the head of that office would be required to brief congressional committees on the development and implementation of the program and long-term plans for these types of initiatives.

An amendment to the Senate’s version of the NDAA included a provision for an AI bug bounty program, but the House version did not. The mandate for such a program made it into the compromise version.

The CDAO is already exploring bounty concepts for its missions. In July, it issued a call to industry to set up and administer a “bias bounty” program to tackle bias in artificial intelligence systems.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is exploring use cases for generative artificial intelligence through Task Force Lima and other efforts. However, there are also concerns that adversaries could use generative AI to harm the United States.

The Senate version of the NDAA included an amendment that would require the Defense Department to create and execute a prize competition to evaluate technology for the detection and watermarking of generative AI. The House version did not include such a provision, but the compromise version does.

“Not later than 270 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, under the authority of section 4025 of title 10, United States Code, the Secretary of Defense shall establish a prize competition designed to evaluate technology (including applications, tools, and models) for generative artificial intelligence detection and generative artificial intelligence watermarking,” the NDAA conference report states.

The objective would be to facilitate the research, development, testing and evaluation of these types of technologies to support the secretaries of the military departments and combatant commanders “in warfighting requirements,” as well as transitioning such technologies from prototyping to production.

For the bill, lawmakers define generative AI detection as “the positive identification of the use of generative artificial intelligence in the generation of” digital content. Generative AI watermarking is defined as “embedding within such content data conveying attribution of the generation of such content to generative artificial intelligence.”

Private sector entities, defense contractors, academia, federally funded R&D centers, and federal departments and agencies would be eligible to participate in the prize competition, which would be administered by the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

Congress hasn’t voted yet on the compromise NDAA.

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The directive comes from the comprise draft of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that was unveiled this week after members of the House and Senate hashed out their respective versions of the bill.

Under the provision, the secretary of defense must enter into an agreement or contract with a capable entity to conduct an independent study on the lessons learned from information ops conducted by the U.S., Ukraine, Russia and NATO nations in the run-up to the Kremlin’s invasion and throughout the war.

The study must include an assessment of information operations capabilities of Russia prior to, and since the invasion of Ukraine; an assessment of notable successes or challenges with information ops conducted by the U.S., NATO member countries and Ukraine prior to, and since the invasion; and recommendations for improvements to U.S. information operations to enhance effectiveness, as well as recommendations on how information ops may be improved to support deterrence.

Information operations — and the information environment more broadly — have significantly increased in importance and prominence in recent years. Adversaries have sought to exploit that environment through disinformation, misinformation, information ops and other activities as a means of undermining U.S. and allied interests without having to confront them in direct military conflict.

“Russia’s influence actors have adapted their efforts to increasingly hide their hand, laundering their preferred messaging through a vast ecosystem of Russian proxy websites, individuals, and organizations that appear to be independent news sources,” the 2023 annual threat assessment of the United States intelligence community, states.

As an example, the Pentagon’s 2023 Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment provides a vignette of Russia’s malign influence efforts that sought to take criticism away from its actions the day it invaded Ukraine and draw attention to alleged oppression by the West. It notes that the day of the invasion, a Kremlin-run media organization disguised as a regular news outlet posted a map on social media that purported to show airstrikes in the last 24 hours, warning: “Don’t let the mainstream media’s Eurocentrism dictate your moral support for victims of war. A human life is a human life. Condemn war everywhere.”

However, that post omitted Russia’s role in bombings in Syria while drawing attention to Israeli attacks there.

Outside advocacy groups have sought to improve DOD’s prowess in this realm. And Congress has been concerned that the Pentagon has fell behind recently, requiring several studies, strategies and changes in past years’ defense bills, to include the creation of the principal information operations adviser a few years ago.

For its part, the DOD has sought to address concerns. Last year, the Pentagon published an update to its doctrine on information and in July it published its Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment, released publicly in November.

The military services have also sought to develop their own strategies and doctrine, with the Marine Corps last year publishing Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication-8, Information, the Air Force developing an information warfare strategy and the Army publishing Army Doctrinal Publication 3-13, Information — it’s first such doctrine for information — in November.

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Broadly, the amendments — deemed the “AI, Group of Four” package, and shared with DefenseScoop on Friday — would direct the Pentagon to shape and steer a sweeping bug bounty program to uncover susceptibilities in its AI systems, require the agency to conduct a vulnerability analyses of AI-enabled military applications, and mandate new reports on data-sharing and coordination, and AI regulation in the financial services industry.

These bipartisan provisions were introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Todd Young, R-Ind., who are also hosting three senators-only AI briefings this summer so lawmakers can learn more about the emerging technology.

“The advances we have seen in [AI] in the last few months have been astounding,” the quartet of lawmakers wrote in a recent letter to their chamber colleagues. “As AI transforms our world, the Senate must keep abreast of the extraordinary potential, and risks, AI presents.”

The first artificial neural network dates back to the 1950s and AI and machine learning capabilities have been evolving and becoming more “intelligent” — faster and faster — over the decades since then. But with the recent public release of generative AI-enabled large language models, politicians and the American citizenry are increasingly recognizing the technology’s uncertain potential to disrupt humanity in new and possibly groundbreaking ways. 

The U.S. military has for years been experimenting with and deploying AI-enabled tools across many offices and on battlegrounds. Elements of the vast organization have piloted and applied software bots and uncrewed platforms — and the defense secretary’s policy team recently updated the Pentagon’s guidance for those who make, buy, test, field, or use autonomous weapon systems. Further, with expressed aims for the department to “become a digital and AI-enabled enterprise,” in 2021 Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks announced the establishment of a Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO).

Two provisions among the “AI, Group of Four” amendments would direct new responsibilities explicitly for the CDAO.

One would require the nascent office to “develop a bug bounty program for foundational artificial intelligence models being integrated into Department of Defense missions and operations.” The text defines a “foundational” AI model as “an adaptive generative model that is trained on a broad set of unlabeled data sets that can be used for different tasks with minimal fine-tuning.”

Notably, the amendment would require the defense secretary to “ensure, as may be appropriate, that whenever the [DOD] enters into any contract, the contract allows for participation in the bug bounty program” that the CDAO would shape. 

That office has previously led a pilot of a legacy Pentagon vulnerability disclosure program to pinpoint cyber threats — though that initiative was not solely focused on AI-specific risks, like this Senate-proposed program.

According to the amendment language, the CDAO’s leadership would also have to provide Congress with updates on future, longer-term plans for the program.

Via another provision in the amendment package, lawmakers would require the CDAO to collaborate with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Energy Department, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and several other federal organizations to “complete a study analyzing the vulnerabilities to the privacy, security, and accuracy of, and capacity to assess, artificial intelligence-enabled military applications, as well as research and development needs for such applications.”

That inclusion supplies a comprehensive list of expected elements of the study. 

Among other activities, the lawmakers call for an evaluation of the “impact of increased agency in [AI-enabled] military applications and how such increased agency may affect the ability to detect and assess new, complex, and emergent behavior, as well risks to the privacy, security, and accuracy of such applications over time” — and the “identification of existing [AI] metrics, developmental, testing and audit capabilities, personnel, and infrastructure within the” DOD. 

The CDAO’s final report on its investigation would be due to Congress within one year of the bill’s enactment. 

Another provision of the legislative package would direct the Defense Department to review and provide a report to congressional defense committees on ways to improve data sharing, interoperability and quality across the Pentagon’s enterprise. 

Contents would include an assessment of the consequences that “a lack of appropriate levels of data sharing, interoperability, and quality has on Departmental collaboration, efficiency, interoperability, and joint-decisionmaking,” and a description of near-, mid-, and long-term efforts that the Office of the Secretary of Defense plans to implement associated with its data, among other things.

The package also includes a provision that would mandate each of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, National Credit Union Administration, and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to submit to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives a report on their “gap in knowledge” relating to AI. 

The Senate’s version of the NDAA, which would authorize $886 billion in total national defense spending, now moves on to conference committee negotiations where it can be reconciled with the House of Representatives-approved version.

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“We view FY24 and the overall passing of both the NDAA and the appropriations bill as a critical moment that now aligns the responsibilities and authorities within U.S. Cyber Command analogous to those of U.S. Special Operations Command,” Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, currently Cybercom’s deputy commander, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday during his confirmation hearing. “With the passing of the FY24 appropriations bill, U.S. Cyber Command will now have the responsibility for the cyber mission force budget, will have the responsibility for the acquisition of the capabilities for our cyber mission force and have the authority to set the training standards.”

Cybercom has, for the most part, been modeled after Socom, which possesses its own budget and enjoys certain service-like authorities such as procurement and the ability to direct training — all of which is unique for a combatant command.

Beginning in fiscal 2024, Congress has granted the command enhanced budget authority, meaning it has greater oversight over the dollars involved in the capabilities and platforms the services are building on its behalf. This is viewed as a critical step regarding Cybercom’s maturation and maturity as it continues to grow since its creation in 2010.

However, if Congress fails to pass these bills, it could jeopardize the combatant command’s ability to continue to mature and address certain challenges.

“The most important thing would be the passing the FY24 appropriation bill. With the FY24 NDAA and the appropriations bill, that will give us those authorities. Without that, we will operate in our previous model until the budget’s passed and then we’ll have to undo that work and redo it,” Haugh said.

This authority will also help organization address readiness issues associated with its cyber mission force — the 133 teams that each service provides the command to conduct cyber operations. From a readiness perspective, Haugh said that’s “the top issue for Cyber Command.”

“With those authorities it allows Cyber Command to set the investment in our training infrastructure, in our training courses and allows the services to focus on recruiting, initial skills training aligned to our standard, and then to leverage the retention capabilities that Congress has given to the services,” Haugh said. “Those are areas now that really change the dynamic of how we will approach cyber readiness, if confirmed.”

Each service has its own identity, culture and way of classifying and providing forces to Cybercom. Many observers argue that this has been to the detriment of the command given these personnel are soldiers or airmen or sailors first, with a secondary focus on cyber.

Senators have been concerned regarding the readiness of these teams and personnel, passing various measures in successive years to remedy them in recent annual policy bills.

“There are a number of pressing issues that will require your attention. First and foremost, 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,” said committee chairman Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. “In order to mature the cyber force and advance our nation’s capabilities to conduct cyber operations and supporting intelligence operations, the military services must provide qualified and trained personnel to your Command on time and at the beginning of their tours.”

The committee’s ranking member seconded such concerns.

“I’m concerned that our cyber readiness may suffer because of cyber mission forces serving brief tours at Cybercom,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said. “The services are providing personnel to Cybercom who lack necessary cyber skills, technical expertise and training. I would welcome your views on how to correct readiness shortfalls within the cyber mission force including how you would work services, training across the department and increase the resiliency of the cyber workforce.”  

Haugh noted that in addition to the authorization and funding measures still pending, Congress has already provided the command the ability to build necessary training ranges, advanced training modules and resources to scale such training.

“As we look at that force, one of the things that we want to ensue 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,” Haugh said.

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A provision included in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s approved language for the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, would mandate the new competition to be steered by the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering through 2025.

“The term ‘detection’ means a technology that can positively identify the presence of generative artificial intelligence in digital content” and the “term ‘watermarking’ means embedding a piece of data onto detected artificial intelligence generated digital content, conveying attribution to the source generation,” the bill text states.

It also notes that identified technologies could support each military department and the combatant commands — and possibly be transitioned into operational prototypes.

Gaining increasing popularity and interest across over the last nine months, generative AI underpins the making of large language models that can generate realistic and high-quality images and videos, sophisticated software code, entirely new datasets and more. The models continue to get more “intelligent” as humans train and use them. 

In a report accompanying their NDAA bill, SASC lawmakers acknowledged how they recognize the “tremendous” possibilities AI offers for breakthroughs that could transform healthcare, education, cybersecurity, defense and scientific research.

“However, the committee is concerned about present and unaddressed challenges to, and from, generative AI, including deepfakes, misinformation, malicious code, and harmful or biased content. These areas must be addressed as generative AI continues to advance and be used in a militarized fashion,” the report noted. 

One of their top areas of apprehension involves the potential outputs and lack of transparency around existing and future capabilities of this type of technology.

“The committee received testimony stating the risks that generative AI presents, including the application of some large models to develop very capable cyber weapons, very capable biological weapons, and disinformation campaigns at scale. Being able to quickly identify and label AI generated content will be critical in enabling real-time accountability, attribution, and public trust in government and Department of Defense systems,” per the report. 

This prize competition lawmakers envision could “provide benefits far beyond the specific technologies delivered, and also provide an opportunity to leverage the widest network of innovation providers possible to unearth new, innovative, or less-well-known techniques to address a less well-understood challenge,” they wrote.

According to SASC’s NDAA proposal, the secretary of defense would need to brief congressional committees on the department’s framework for implementing the competition, within 120 days of the bill’s enactment — and the initial event would be hosted within 270 days after it’s passed. 

Each year by Oct. 1 — until the project’s termination in 2025 — DOD would also need to supply appropriate defense committees with a full report on the results of the competition.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, is a key proponent of this provision and a new DOD-led competition to better pinpoint generative AI.

As “a member of the Senate’s informal AI Task Force, and with his experience and expertise as Co-Chair of the Solarium Commission, he saw this as a useful way to have the government’s capabilities be as current and innovative as the private sector’s thinking,” an aide for King told DefenseScoop this week.

Beyond the SASC, others in the government are pushing for solutions as well. The Biden administration’s top cyber advisor recently urged industry leaders in closed-door meetings to consider watermarking to help combat risks of AI-generated disinformation.

A reconciled version of the NDAA must be passed by the Senate and House and signed by the president before becoming law.

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A provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee version of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act — which passed the committee at the end of June but was only released publicly on Tuesday — calls for a more standard approach to how the military services present forces to U.S. Cyber Command.

It comes amid bipartisan concern regarding the readiness levels of the cyber mission force.

The military services are each responsible for providing personnel for a set number of teams to Cybercom, which then employs those forces in operations for the other geographic combatant commands. But each service has its own identity, culture, and way of classifying and providing forces to Cybercom with many arguing that this has been to the detriment of cyber warriors given they are soldiers or airmen or sailors first, with a focus on cyber second.

Some say this has led to incongruence in how the teams are filled and personnel cycling in and out too quickly.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s provision first requires the secretary of defense to devise a plan to require common enlistment and general tour lengths across the services for the cyber mission force, enlistment terms that are appropriate given the training required and sufficient enough to meet readiness requirements.

The services must also present cyber mission force personnel to Cybercom that are fully trained to certain standards. Very often in the past, members would not get all the training they would need prior to arriving at their unit, with services electing to have forces get more on-the-job training once at an operational unit.

The provision follows similar sentiments from years past from both congressional armed services committees, requiring a plan to address readiness shortfalls and a study on the responsibilities of the military services for organizing, training and presenting forces to Cybercom.

“We’re not at the point of putting a roadblock up on their modest force expansion, but in practical terms, they’re really are going to need to get a handle on their bottlenecks for readiness if they hope to have expanded forces that are ready,” an aide told reporters last year, noting then that many of those previous provisions for addressing readiness issues stemmed from a classified hearing.

In some cases, Cybercom has been forced to curb its cyber mission force expansion. Prior reports highlighted how the Navy was forced to adjust and scale back four additional teams it was slated to provide to the cyber mission force as part of authorized growth to the overall force over the next five years.

Concerns regarding the imbalance between how each service approaches cyber has led to growing calls for an independent cyber service, akin to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force. The Senate committee also included a provision proposing an outside assessment regarding an independent military cyber service in the bill.

The NDAA must still be passed by the entire Senate and reconciled with the House’s version.

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