The CIO’s recently released software modernization implementation plan for fiscal 2025 and 2026 marks another call from Pentagon leadership for the entire department to improve delivery of software-based capabilities. The document lists three key goals for the next two years — focusing on software factories, enterprise cloud and transforming processes — as well as specific tasks for each goal that aims to improve overall software modernization.

The goals and tasks in the document build upon the DOD CIO’s first software modernization implementation plan for fiscal 2023 and 2024. According to the new roadmap, the Pentagon completed 27 out of 41 of the tasks outlined in the previous plan, carried 12 tasks over to FY25 and FY26 and combined two tasks with others in the updated document.

Rob Vietmeyer, chief software officer for the deputy CIO for information enterprise, said that while working through the goals in the first implementation plan, the office realized that some of the associated tasks weren’t mature enough to fully execute on.

“For a small portion, we learned that we didn’t know enough about a couple of those activities, so we dropped them. And then some of them, we were maybe over aggressive or they evolved,” he said Wednesday during a panel discussion at AFCEA’s TechNet Cyber conference. “I’ll say, from an agile perspective, we didn’t have the user score exactly right, so some of these stories have continued into the implementation plan two.”

The first goal outlined in the new plan is to accelerate and scale the Pentagon’s enterprise cloud environment. Along with its multi-cloud, multi-vendor contract known as the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), the department also has a number of other efforts aimed at providing cloud infrastructure overseas and at the tactical edge. 

Vietmeyer said that even though JWCC has been a relative success — noting that the department has awarded at least $2.7 billion worth of task orders under the program — the contract vehicle was “suboptimal” for large acquisitions. The CIO is currently planning for what it calls JWCC 2.0, a follow-on phase that adds more vendors and different contracting mechanisms to the program.

Beyond JWCC, the implementation plan calls for the establishment of additional contract options for cloud innovation — specifically geared towards small business and “niche providers” — that can be awarded before the end of fiscal 2026.

“In the implementation plan, we’re trying to build that next-generation cloud infrastructure and extend it. Not just looking at JWCC, but we’re also looking at how we extend for small business cloud providers,” Vietmeyer said. 

The document also offers guidance for Pentagon efforts to expand cloud access to the edge, such as through Stratus or the Joint Operational Edge (JOE) environments. In the next two years, the department will develop a reference design for an “underlying cloud mesh” that facilitates data transport, software development and information-sharing across different infrastructures overseas, according to the plan.

The mesh architecture would allow warfighters from one military service to access a cloud node operated by a different service, or one owned by the Defense Information Systems Agency, Vietmeyer explained.

“We’ve seen that one of the challenges is moving to a mesh type of architecture, so we can identify where computing infrastructure exists and allow the warfighters to take advantage [of it],” he said. “How do we start to build the ability for applications and data to scale across that infrastructure in a highly resilient way?”

Along with enterprise cloud, another goal within the updated implementation plan focuses on creating a Pentagon-wide software factory ecosystem that fully leverages a DevSecOps approach. The CIO intends to take successful practices from the various software factories in DOD and replicate them across the department, according to the plan.

“DoD must continue to scale success and bridge the right disciplines together … to ensure end-to-end enablement and realization of the software modernization vision and adoption of software platforms and factories organized by domain,” the document stated.

The CIO will also work to remove existing processes and red tape that prevents software developers from accessing critical tools and capabilities; increase the number of platforms with continuous authorization to operate (cATO) approvals; and create a DevSecOps reference design for artificial intelligence and software-based automation deployment.

Lastly, the implementation plan outlines multiple tasks geared towards evolving the Pentagon’s policies, regulations and standards to better support software development and delivery — including creating secure software standards, improving software deployment in weapons platforms and growing its workforce.

Although work to accelerate the Pentagon’s software modernization has been happening for years, leaders at the department have begun pushing for more focused efforts to remove bureaucratic red tape through new guidance — such as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Modern Software Acquisition memo released in March, and the CIO’s new Software Fast Track (SWIFT) program.

“For modern practices to become the routine way of developing and delivering software, policy, regulations, and standards must be reviewed and updated,” the implementation plan stated. “DoD must work with DoD Components to update policy and guidance to reduce the barriers to adopting new practices and to accelerate software delivery and cybersecurity approvals to enable adoption of the latest tools and services.”

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Pending accreditation, the chatbot will be deployed to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and allow users to experiment with genAI models on the Secure Internet Protocol Router (SIPRNet), Jeff Marshall, director of DISA’s Hosting and Compute Center, said during a webinar broadcast Tuesday by Federal News Network. The platform is currently in the accreditation stage and is expected to open up “within the next month or so,” Marshall noted.

The capability was developed in close collaboration with the Air Force Research Lab, which launched its own experimental generative AI chatbot for the Department of the Air Force on unclassified networks — dubbed NIPRGPT — last year. Similar to AFRL’s program, AFRL and DISA are using the effort to evaluate and expedite delivery of commercial AI tools, but the agency’s initiative will be in classified realms, Marshall said.

“We’re not trying to deploy this on our own. We’re not trying to make it a production system. This is [a research-and-development] system that we’re using for Indo-Pacom in order to test large language models overseas,” he said.

Across the Pentagon, organizations have looked to capitalize on commercial large language models and other artificial intelligence capabilities. Although there have been various efforts over the last few years — ranging from task forces to experimental platforms — the department is still learning how the technology can be best used to improve back-office and tactical operations.

Marshall noted that DISA’s SIPR-based LLM will largely help “facilitate that demand signal of, what does an Indo-Pacom commander need and want to utilize AI for? And then, how do we then shape that to what industry can actually provide for us at scale?”

DISA plans to host the chatbot on one of the two Joint Operational Edge (JOE) cloud environments it has deployed to the Pacific. Initiated in 2023, the JOE cloud effort seeks to stand up commercial cloud environments at the agency’s overseas data centers, allowing DISA to place cloud-native applications in locations outside of the continental United States. Along with JOE, the agency is also providing its private cloud capability known as Stratus to areas overseas.

To date, DISA has put two JOE cloud nodes at Indo-Pacom and one at U.S. European Command, and will soon deploy another node in Southwest Asia, Marshall said.

Moving forward, DISA is looking to potentially provide additional JOE cloud environments in Europe in order to support operations for U.S. Africa Command, which is headquartered in Germany. But Marshall emphasized the agency is doing so while balancing demand signals with available resources.

“Let’s don’t just throw it all out there one time and hope that it sticks to the wall,” he said. “We’re taking in the demand signal, we’re making sure that there is a valid need that supports us doing the deployment and then, of course, there’s a budget to cover it.”

Updated on March 26, 2025, at 10:35 AM: This story has been updated to clarify AFRL’s role in the new chatbot initiative and to remove “acting” from Jeff Marshall’s job title.

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