Ahead of the announcement, Army officials told reporters that they’re looking to change the software buying model.

“The direction we’re moving in right now in the Army is this is going to be one of many enterprise licensing agreements that we’re looking at entering into,” Army Chief Information Officer Leonel Garciga told a small group of reporters ahead of the announcement. “I think the big thing to think about is, as kind of we move forward, we’re finding some things, we have a lot of big software packages that are out there. They’ve been bought over several years, several program offices, several commands, [but we’re] not getting a lot of parity across the board on how they’re being delivered, right? Adding a lot of complexity to the environment. And we’ve been thinking through a couple things, right? One is, how do we reduce the complexity, right? So lower overhead to acquire capability, especially software. That’s kind of the first kind of tenet.”

The next piece, he said, is to figure out how to “make it a lot easier to acquire said software, right?” 

“I think the traditional model of, hey, we’re just buying software licenses and services … in combos kind of doesn’t work in this new environment and the way that things are being delivered,” Garciga said. “So how do we add enough fidelity, right, and an approach where folks can really get the software the way they need it?” 

The final piece, one that Garciga said he as the Army CIO cares “very much about,” is reducing cost. “How do we get better buying power across the board?” he said.

The 10-year deal with Palantir is worth up to $10 billion, although Army officials noted that they’re not committed to spending that much money. The move will consolidate 75 contract vehicles as the Army looks to streamline things, they said.

“This really has been our first kind of separate sense to go in and really get a large ELA. This is one of many. But our intent is to continue to move down this path, right, to really focus on reducing that complexity, adding agility to how we buy, right, and then the last piece … which is save taxpayer dollars as much as we can,” Garciga said.

The service is in talks with other vendors for similar types of arrangements.

“We have a couple of others that are teed up that we’re either already in negotiation with or starting the conversation to start negotiations with to do this across the board,” Garciga said.

A key aim of the initiative is to get better deals from a unit cost perspective. In the civilian side of the federal government, the General Services Administration is leading a similar effort to maximize government buying power for software licenses called OneGov.

“What I see across contracts is, hey, if I have more than one contract with the same vendor, have I bought the same thing more than once in a different way or at a different price? And just from a common-sense perspective, does that really make sense?” Danielle Moyer, executive director of Army Contracting Command, told reporters.

“Starting with Palantir and as we look at other ones, we’re looking at, hey, it makes sense to make sure … we’re getting the best discounts. So just like economies of scale buy, right? If I buy one widget, it costs X amount. If I buy 100, I should get a discount. And the more I buy at scale, the more of a discount I should [get]. And also …  just in general, across this whole initiative, we’ll look at, well, how are you selling this elsewhere? Should there be clauses in the contract that say, hey, you know, if you try and sell it somewhere else, we need to come back here and look at what the rate is on this and get a discount,” Moyer said.

She noted that the Army isn’t actually obligating $10 billion to Palantir, but the deal recognizes potential growth for the services and goods that are on that contract with the multibillion-dollar ceiling. While there is a minimum spend requirement on the contracts, the Army has no obligation to buy more than it sees fit across its enterprise. 

The Army is also trying to avoid vendor lock as it shakes up its buying practices.

“The other really important thing to note there is competition for future programs and things like that will still continue to happen. So, for example, if on all these ELAs — name the vendor — if we’re specifically talking about Palantir, if Palantir chooses to compete on, you know, whatever program or weapon system in there, the chosen awardee they happen to be at, then we would obviously leverage this agreement [to get] economies of scale discounts, buys, right, that makes the volume,” Moyer said. “We would leverage our buying power in the Army to get maximum discounts. So those are probably, from a contracting perspective, the things that … we really want to make sure that we hit home, which is robust competition is still a thing.”

The Army also wants to make sure it doesn’t overbuy and acquire licenses it doesn’t need.

Officials used a food analogy, comparing previous software buying practices to all-you-can-eat buffets or combo deals where customers essentially pay for things they might not consume.

“As we look at the way we’ve done kind of historical contracting … we typically will, kind of sometimes overbuy, because we’re trying to kind of calculate what expected growth is and whatnot. So this [enterprise agreement] is meant to help shape that, to say we’re buying just in time into that growth pattern, right? So, instead of saying, OK, I need 100 licenses, I only have to buy 50 now based on the real usage versus buy 100 because that’s where we have to fix a contract that’s meant to be for a longer period of time. So shifting that mentality is to say, OK, now we could just do just in time, kind of delivery of services,” Gabe Chiulli, chief technology officer for Army’s Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, told reporters.

Officials want a more flexible range of options, sort of like an a la carte menu where they can just pick exactly what they want.

Garciga said early efforts to set the stage for the new model began during the previous administration, but he suggested that the focus on improving software acquisition at the Defense Department under the Trump administration has provided additional momentum.

“We have been working on this since November of last year. And I think that there was just an inherent understanding, you know, almost two years ago now that we needed to start moving in this direction with a handful of our vendors,” he said. “There’s been a lot of prep work and foundation being laid to have this conversation. If anything, what I’d say is the change in the environment has allowed us to move a little bit faster than we would have normally, and I think, a willing acceptance by a lot of our commercial partners to rethink the way that they integrate and work with us in the government and what our contractual agreements are going to look like moving forward. So I think … we’ve had a little bit of a catalyst over the last like quarter and a half that’s just be able to get this like really over the hump, to get a really good deal for the Army.”

Moyer said the new way of doing things will also improve transparency into what the Army is buying.

“It’s easy [to keep track] when you buy things that you can see, right? When you buy a tank, right, you can probably see the brand of the wheels on it. It’s pretty, pretty easy. Well, when you build, you know, a weapon system that might have some software in it, and that software vendor — name the vendor — is a subcontractor, we don’t always have visibility on who those are. So I think this initiative in general will provide us visibility into how often are we buying the same software that is essentially a component or a subcontractor through somebody else,” Moyer told reporters.

The Army, as a huge organization that buys a ton of software, should be able to get better deals, Garciga suggested.

“When I look across the landscape, there’s … both software and hardware procurements that we’re doing out there with major IT companies where it would be advantageous to get an enterprise agreement just to get value at scale, right? I mean, think [about] the Army [having] 1.3 million people, right? I mean, we’ve got more endpoints than some countries do,” he said.

The Army is also looking to prevent middlemen from jacking up costs for software.

“What the enterprise agreement allows us to do is to get a much better kind of understanding when we do actually compete new work on what some of those baseline costs are going to be, because we’re kind of making it so folks have to use the enterprise agreement to buy the software, as opposed to what we’ve seen traditionally, which is like, hey, somebody’s going to go out buy this, and then a company is going to go buy it … and bump our cost up considerably for the same piece of software at scale. So I think our intent, like from especially from the CIO’s office, is to focus on where we have a considerable amount of use across Army commands and Army programs, can we engage with those companies to get value at scale, right, and in no way to get in the way of competition,” Garciga said.

ELAs are also seen as a way to help the Army keep pace with fast-moving software developments.

“We don’t want to be in the business of just buying this big block of software and then, you know, three years from now, we’re trying to figure out how to modernize that. No, on the contrary, I think this puts us in a much better position to be able to get that refresh happening organically from the commercial space. And again, it’s about flexibility too, right? It’s having that CLIN [contract line item number] structure that really allows us to as things grow and shrink, have the opportunity to adjust those levers and those rheostats to get us to kind of a baseline,” Garciga said.

He continued: “The next big step, right, and I think we’re going to see this with a lot of our vendors, is this idea of, like, hardware as a service and hardware subscriptions. I think we’re going to see that come in, too. That’s one that we’re working especially for fixed and garrison locations, is where do we have opportunities to rethink where traditionally we’ve done bulk buys and then, you know, five years later, we’re trying to figure out why we can’t lifecycle maintenance it. Now we’re going to kind of as a service, right? And we’ll work with the vendor to make sure that happens. But on the software side, yeah, definitely this is a lot easier.”

Moyer said under the enterprise agreement framework, the Army would be in a position to negotiate better deals over time.

“The other thing that you know we’re working across all the enterprise agreements we’re looking at is, once we get to X number every year … then we’re going to potentially negotiate on all these either A, a true up, or B, a discount for the next year,” she said.

Garciga noted that in the past, the Army has sometimes lost the space to negotiate.

“What we’re seeing right now is, how do you build a vehicle that allows you to … true up, true down, right as the environment changes?” he told reporters. “The larger we get, the bigger the discount. And we may be here for, like, you know, X amount, and then, you know, if we go to the next level up, we’ll get an even bigger discount, right? So I think that that’s going to be the big thing, is continuing that negotiation.”

Another important aspect of the enterprise agreement framework is that it will give the Army flexibility to jump around from a capability-acquisition perspective, he noted.

“If we want to move to the next major … platform that we want to do an enterprise agreement with, and we want to get off the one we’re on, we can gracefully exit that without having kind of put a lot of capital in front that we can’t recover,” Garciga said.

Moyer said the enterprise agreements will have minimum guarantees.

“Once you meet that, you don’t ever have to use that contract again. So if any point it doesn’t make sense … to use that vehicle, there’s somebody different or better, we could always do something different,” she told DefenseScoop. “But … just using my own common sense, why wouldn’t I try and get the best deal for as long as possible and write things in there like maximum discount buys, matching commercial prices, right? So, like, not necessarily for this specific EA, but just a general EA.”

There are many vendors out there that the Army could have enterprise agreements with, officials told DefenseScoop. And, there could be opportunities for the other services or DOD writ large to pursue these types of agreements.

“The service CIOs are all talking and we’re talking with DOD CIO,” Garciga told DefenseScoop. “If you’re already a year into your negotiation, like, we’re gonna put our requirements in and you finish up. If we’re a year into our negotiation and we’re like about to award, like, hey, we’ll get your requirements agreement. So I think we’re really at this point, I think the whole department is really pushing harder to move in this direction. So this [deal with Palantir] is just one of our first off the chute kind of big ones.”

The other services could potentially piggyback off the Army.

“There are discussions that are currently ongoing and … they’ll figure out what makes sense for them,” Moyer told DefenseScoop. “But we will position ourselves to make sure that, you know, if we can use taxpayer dollars in the most efficient way possible to get the biggest discount for any of these enterprise agreements we’re working, that is what we’re going to do.”

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Traditionally, that meant collecting and sending data back to command facilities in Hawaii or the continental U.S. for analysis and response. But in fast-changing operational environments, that approach is quickly becoming outmoded and unreliable.

This scenario highlights both the challenge commanders face and the strategic shift underway across the military. The decisive advantage no longer rests solely on the movement of troops and materiel—but on the ability to move and process information faster, more securely, and with greater operational relevance than adversaries.

Achieving that kind of information advantage means being able to deliver real-time insights to warfighters in the field—especially in environments where communications are disconnected, disrupted, intermittent, or limited (DDIL). This isn’t just a technical upgrade; it’s a strategic imperative.

Underlying this shift is the growing expectation that actionable intelligence will reach those on the front lines faster than it reaches our adversaries. That expectation is driven in no small part by the commercial experience most consumers have become accustomed to – e.g., the ability to track deliveries en route and notifications when they arrive.  

Conflict planning and logistics in contested DDIL environments are obviously more complicated, which is all the more reason why the advantage lies with those who have an information advantage. That requires assessing, processing, and disseminating vast amounts of data quickly at the edge.

Gaining the data edge

“In many regards, data is the five-five-six round of the next war,” said John Sahlin, vice president for defense cyber solutions at General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), referring to the standardized rifle cartridge used by NATO forces. “It has become the lynchpin to enhance the decision-making process for advantage.”

That advantage depends on more than just collecting data. It requires turning it into usable intelligence faster than adversaries can react.

“The core problem is latency,” explained Matt Ashton, partner customer engineer at Google Public Sector. “Until recently, the immense volume of data from sensors, drones, and logistical trackers required the processing power and AI available primarily in distant cloud computing centers.”

“Our DOD customers struggle with the current status quo at the edge because they can’t run true AI,” said Ashton. “So data has to get sent back to the mother ship to crunch the data and get a resolution. The massive differentiator now is our ability to provide AI at the edge.”

According to both industry experts, the solution lies in a combination of powerful, ruggedized edge computing platforms and AI models specifically engineered for defense use that can operate independently, even when completely disconnected from high-capacity networks.

Google, for example, provides this capability through its Google Distributed Cloud (GDC), a platform designed to bring data center capabilities to the field.

“GDC was built to run so it never has to ‘call home.’ It can sit on the Moon or a ship. It doesn’t have to get updates,” Ashton said. “It’s a family of solutions that includes a global network, but also features an air-gapped GDC box that connects to the Wide Area Network and other on-prem servers not on the internet.”

This allows commanders on submarines, at remote bases, or in forward-deployed positions to run AI and analytics locally and process vast sensor data streams in-theater without waiting on external links.

Why mission-specific AI models matter

However, raw computing power is only part of the equation. Commercial AI models often lack a nuanced understanding of military operations. This is where operationally relevant AI models developed by GDIT that translate raw data into relevant, actionable intelligence are crucial.

Sahlin compared the role of mission-specific AI models to a speedometer in a car. “What it measures is the revolutions per minute of the axle. What it reports is how fast you’re going in miles per hour,” he explained. “That’s the kind of insight that only comes from real-world familiarity with military operations.”

“A clear grasp of operational objectives is key to developing models that are tuned to real-world demands of each mission,” said Sahlin. “So that may mean multiple mini-models to translate data into relevant insights.”

Sahlin also explained why applications built on an open data architecture model are crucial to adaptability at the edge.

“The real value of an open data architecture, particularly in the defense industry, is that it’s a very decentralized platform. Logistics is a classic example of commercial, local, last-mile delivery providers working with many sources. In the military, you won’t have a single source or model. This is where open architecture is critical.”

Security remains foundational to all of this. Sahlin noted that while the military can benefit from commercial innovation, it still needs to ensure higher levels of security than commercial operators. So it’s also essential that the military’s AI development partners have a deep understanding of the Defense Department’s zero trust security practices and requirements, which apply to the broader base of defense suppliers in the DOD’s supply chain.

“GDIT’s value lies in its longstanding experience supporting defense missions,” Sahlin said. “We work with clients to gather the right data, build tailored models, and deliver intelligence to the edge, even in DDIL conditions where units may be disconnected or intentionally silent.”

Looking ahead

By combining a platform like GDC with mission-specific AI models from GDIT, military logistics teams can move from reactive support to proactive planning, anticipating needs, reallocating resources, and outmaneuvering adversaries.

As operational demands grow more complex and communications become more contested, defense leaders say gaining an information advantage at the edge isn’t just important, it’s essential for mission success.

Learn more about how GDIT and Google Distributed Cloud can help your organization deliver at the edge more proactively.

This article was sponsored by GDIT and Google Cloud.

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The memo, signed by Chief Information Officer Jane Rathbun and acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Brett Seidle, established a new DON-wide policy for “containerization technology usage.”

Containerization is a software deployment process that “bundles an application’s code with all the files and libraries it needs to run on any infrastructure,” according to an AWS description of the concept.

Navy officials see major benefits in adopting that capability for the department.

“Software containerization offers transformative advantages for the DON’s IT infrastructure and software deployment capabilities. This technology enables the Department to deploy applications consistently across highly varied environments while enhancing security, reducing computing resource overhead, and accelerating development cycles. Prioritizing containerization technology aligns with the Department’s software modernization goals and supports mission-critical operations with greater reliability and efficiency,” the memo states.

The new directive, publicly released Wednesday, applies to all new software development efforts across the department’s commands and programs enabled by cloud services and deployment models where enterprise container platforms and DevSecOps pipelines exist or are in development. It comes as the Navy and Marine Corps are pursuing wide-ranging software and IT modernization initiatives, including cloud adoption and migration.

“In the drive to increase operational agility, resiliency, optimization of our investments, and to achieve an organically digital state; we must advance to modem, proven software development and delivery practices. Securely accessing and transporting data across boundaries at the speed of relevance requires operating in a cloud-enabled ecosystem and software must be designed to effectively maneuver within it,” Rathbun and Seidle stated. “Effective immediately, all software development activities transitioning to the cloud and/or upgrades that are hosted in a cloud as outlined above must utilize containerization technology to the greatest extent practical.”

Seidle signed the directive July 17. Rathbun had previously signed it.

Officials can request exemptions to the policy, but they must provide the designated cybersecurity technical authority with a detailed justification.

“Exceptions will be granted where the risk of not leveraging containerization technology is deemed acceptable or the implementation would be prohibitively expensive. Potential exceptions may include production representative digital twins (where production cannot be or is not containerized), alternative cloud scaling capabilities like serverless technologies, or virtualization technologies for hardware in the loop. An itemized bulk exception can be granted,” per the memo.

The policy will be reviewed and updated annually, according to the directive.

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As vice president of AI-first transformation, Plumb will spearhead IBM’s Next-Generation Transformation Strategy and work across the company’s core business lines to foster adoption of AI, automation and hybrid cloud computing throughout the global organization and with its clients and partners.

Plumb started in the role July 14.

A key part of her job, Plumb told DefenseScoop, will be serving as IBM’s “Client Zero,” meaning she will internally operationalize AI technologies and concepts to test them before deploying to clients.

“The approach is really taking AI solutions and embedding them in the company’s own processes and then using that to prove out how AI solves problems, drives agility, creates efficiencies, which IBM then can use to help demonstrate that value for its customers, right? So, this is an internal transformation role, but with an eye towards building out concrete examples of execution for external consumption,” Plumb told DefenseScoop.

That’s not so dissimilar from her role leading the CDAO, which serves as a central hub for accelerating and spreading the adoption of AI, data and analytics capabilities across the U.S. military. She likened it to the work of CDAO’s Rapid Capabilities Cell, which has been responsible for ushering in major contracts with frontier AI models.

Likewise, IBM is very focused on “scaled adoption at the enterprise level,” Plumb said.

“So how can you get AI tools into the hands of your workforce, and do it in a way that, rather than AI as a substitute for all the humans, you team AI with the humans to drive efficiency and productivity?” she said.

Plumb explained: “IBM’s big bet is … how can we do this as an enterprise transformation and really kind of drive the AI transformation vision in concrete ways through businesses.”

In particular, she sees an opportunity for IBM in working with her former employer, the Pentagon, and the federal government at large on the business side with applications, for example, managing supply chains, logistics, contracting and more.

“That’s where I think there’s a lot of potential for rapid movement of things we find that work in IBM and applications to the federal sector,” Plumb said.

Since Plumb’s departure from the CDAO in January, the office was led by Margie Palmieri, the deputy CDAO, until DOD leadership named Douglas Matty as the new leader in April. Matty previously founded the Army AI Integration Center under Army Futures Command, which he led between 2020 and 2022. Last week, DefenseScoop reported that Palmieri, one of the CDAO’s longest-tenured leaders, is the latest to depart the organization amid a raft of others who’ve left.

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“The United States must aggressively adopt AI within its Armed Forces if it is to maintain its global military preeminence while also ensuring, as outlined throughout this Action Plan, that its use of AI is secure and reliable,” the 28-page AI Action Plan document states.

Released on Wednesday — ahead of several corresponding executive orders in the publication pipeline — America’s AI Action Plan broadly promotes more widespread use of AI and machine learning, and seeks to reduce administrative and other hindrances limiting government deployments. 

“The Action Plan’s objective is to articulate policy recommendations that this administration can deliver for the American people to achieve the president’s vision of global AI dominance,” officials wrote.

The strategy prioritizes three pillars: driving innovation, building out infrastructure, and leading in international AI diplomacy and security.

It builds on the American AI Initiative launched under the first Trump administration, and was prompted after the president rescinded a Biden administration AI mandate in January at the start of his second term.

Because of DOD’s “unique operational needs,” the new action plan carves out policy recommendations custom for the department — such as the new AI and autonomy proving ground. The process for that new test range will begin “with scoping the technical, geographic, security, and resourcing requirements necessary for such a facility,” officials wrote.

The plan also directs the Pentagon to develop a streamlined process for classifying, evaluating, and optimizing workflows involved in its major functions and, eventually, a list of its priority workflows for automation with AI.

Personnel are additionally told to “prioritize DOD-led agreements with cloud service providers, operators of computing infrastructure, and other relevant private sector entities to codify priority access to computing resources in the event of a national emergency so that DOD is prepared to fully leverage these technologies during a significant conflict.”

Further, Trump’s framework calls for new talent development programs to meet the Pentagon’s AI-related workforce requirements — and to grow its Senior Military Colleges “into hubs of AI research, development, and talent building, teaching core AI skills and literacy to future generations.”

On a call with reporters Wednesday morning, a senior White House official said that more than 10,000 responses were submitted to the administration’s request for information to inform the action plan’s development.

“It was probably one of the most diverse sets of individuals from across the country and across different sectors — from civil society, to Hollywood, to academia, to the private sector. It really represented and showed the intense interest that the American people had in this and the responses from that RFI ultimately were reflected in the report,” the senior official said.

The guidance does not explicitly name the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office in regards to carrying out any of these new responsibilities.

Editor’s note: FedScoop’s Madison Alder contributed reporting.

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The secretary’s order, signed Friday but first made public Tuesday, came after an eye-opening investigation by ProPublica revealed Microsoft had been relying on China-based engineers to support DOD cloud computing systems.

Short on specific details, Hegseth’s order enlists the CIO — with the support of the department’s heads of acquisition and sustainment, intelligence and security, and research and engineering — to “take immediate actions to ensure to the maximum extent possible that all information technology capabilities, including cloud services, developed and procured for DoD are reviewed and validated as secure against supply chain attacks by adversaries such as China and Russia.”

Hegseth first referenced his order in a video posted to X on Friday, in which he said, “some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labor to assist with DoD cloud services,” calling for a “two-week review” to make sure that isn’t happening anywhere else in the department’s tech supply chains.

The secretary, in both his video and the new memo, stopped short of calling out Microsoft specifically. However, a spokesperson for the company has since stated publicly that it has made changes to “assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services.”

“This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment,” Hegseth said in the Friday video, claiming that the system at the center of the incident is “a legacy system created over a decade ago during the Obama administration.”

He added: “We have to ensure the digital systems that we use here at the Defense Department are ironclad and impenetrable, and that’s why today I’m announcing that China will no longer have any involvement whatsoever in our cloud services.”

The memo itself calls on the department to “fortify existing programs and processes utilized within the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) to ensure that adversarial foreign influence is appropriately eliminated or mitigated and determine what, if any, additional actions may be required to address these risks.” Specifically, it cites the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) — the final rule for which, as of Wednesday, is undergoing regulatory review with the Office of Management and Budget — acting CIO Katie Arrington’s new Software Fast Track program, and the FedRAMP process as existing efforts the Pentagon CIO should rely on to ensure the department’s tech is secure.

Within 15 days of the order’s signing, DOD’s Office of the CIO must issue additional implementing guidance on the matter, led by department CISO Dave McKeown.

On top of that, it taps the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security to “review and validate personnel security practices and insider threat programs of the DIB and cloud service providers to the maximum extent possible.”

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“JWCC requires highly skilled services to support office operations, and the delivery of modern enterprise cloud services and related technologies. These services must include technical expertise in cloud engineering, cybersecurity, financial management, program execution support, and technical writing through direct support of system owners and technical experts regarding various challenges with migration to the cloud and leveraging commercial cloud technologies,” officials wrote. 

The Department of Defense awarded its highly-anticipated enterprise cloud contract to Google, Oracle, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in late 2022. 

JWCC marks a key element in the DOD’s push for digital modernization, and the original contract has a ceiling of $9 billion. Officials have been somewhat tight-lipped about JWCC progress since the program’s inception — but as of August 2024, the Pentagon had awarded just under $1 billion in task orders to vendors competing for the enterprise cloud initiative.

This latest defense cloud-enabling information request was published by DISA’s Hosting and Compute Directorate, which is responsible for managing the JWCC contract vehicle.

“This is a SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE to determine the availability and technical capability of 8(a) certified small businesses to provide the required products and/or services,” officials wrote.

Such companies have gone through and been verified by a federal government-run federal contracting and training program designed for experienced small business owners who are considered socially and economically disadvantaged. 

In Thursday’s notice, DISA officials list and define associated in-demand capabilities across three categories: Cloud Infrastructure and Engineering; Cybersecurity and Risk Management; and Infrastructure and Software Engineering.

The work is envisioned to be performed at DISA facilities inside and outside of the continental U.S. The anticipated period of performance is a 1-month transition period, an 11-month base period, and four 12-month option periods.

Businesses that aim to respond must submit information including a brief capabilities statement to an email included in the notice, by July 31.

Earlier this year, DISA unveiled plans to roll out a follow-on to the current enterprise cloud vehicle — named JWCC Next — likely in 2026. A DISA spokesperson declined to answer questions Thursday regarding the motivation behind this new sources sought notice, or how it fits into the agency’s vision for JWCC Next.

“As standard practice, DISA cannot discuss open solicitations posted on SAM.gov or other sites, as it could violate established procurement regulations and policies. Therefore, we have nothing to add at this time,” the spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

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Cyrus Jabbari stepped into the CDO role at U.S. Central Command in May, but his hiring wasn’t officially announced by the organization until this week.

In his new position, Jabbari will “oversee the strategic integration of data-driven solutions to enhance operational effectiveness across CENTCOM’s area of responsibility,” according to a press release.

Centcom has been on the cutting edge of U.S. military technology adoption. It has three units — Task Force 59 under Naval Forces Central Command, Task Force 99 under Air Forces Central, and Task Force 39 under Army Central — that in recent years have been experimenting with and deploying emerging tech such as AI and machine learning, data analytics, unmanned systems and cloud computing. The command has also adopted tools like the Maven Smart System to aid decision-making.

Jabbari isn’t a newcomer to the Defense Department. He previously served as the first-ever CDO in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. In that role, he was charged with developing, managing and overseeing implementation of data policies across the Pentagon’s R&E enterprise, including for organizations such as the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), Missile Defense Agency, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Test Resource Management and Defense Technical Information Center, among others, according to his LinkedIn profile.

At the R&E directorate, he also chaired the Transition Tracking Action Group, which was stood up in February 2024 to boost DOD’s ability to keep tabs on, manage and make smart investments in technology transition efforts across the Pentagon’s vast capability development enterprise, all the way from the early stages of R&D to fielding, according to a press release.

The action group enabled “a new approach to technology portfolio management that leverages advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence to provide DOD officials with the insights [they need] to make informed, innovative decisions,” Jabbari said in a statement last year.

Prior to that, Jabbari supported the Pentagon as a data and analytics lead at ANSER, a non-profit corporation that develops solutions for clients in the national security community, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“Thrilled to officially welcome a fantastic partner Cyrus J. to the team — it’s amazing when the right people end up on the right team and in the right position for the right mission at the right time — magic happens,” Centcom Chief Technology Officer Joy Angela Shanaberger said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday night.

In a separate statement, she said she was “confident his expertise will be a game-changer in our efforts to harness the power of data to drive warfighter-centric innovation across United States Central Command.”

“Joining CENTCOM is both a professional honor and personal calling. This command stands at the forefront of operational experimentation and complexity — where decisions must be made faster, with greater precision, and under immense pressure,” Jabbari said in a statement. “CENTCOM is where data must drive action and where data is valued as a warfighting asset. A lot of great leadership has put CENTCOM on the right path, and I am honored to carry us into our next phase of accelerating data capabilities for ever-pressing missions.”

The position of Centcom CDO was previously held by Michael Foster. He left the command in December near the end of the Biden administration and is currently chief data engineer at Raft, a defense technology company, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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Anthropic, Google and xAI will join OpenAI on the CDAO’s nascent effort to partner with industry on pioneering artificial intelligence projects focused on national security applications. Under the individual contracts — each worth up to $200 million — the Pentagon will have access to some of the most advanced AI capabilities developed by the four companies, including large language models, agentic AI workflows, cloud-based infrastructure and more.

“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,” Chief Digital and AI Officer Doug Matty said in a statement. “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.”

OpenAI received the first contract for the effort June 17 and will create prototypes of agentic workflows for national security missions. According to CDAO, work with all four vendors will expand the Pentagon’s experience with emerging AI capabilities, as well as give the companies better insights into how their technology can benefit the department.

The contract with CDAO is also another win for xAI, which is owned by Musk — who previously led the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts but recently had a falling out with President Donald Trump over legislation and other issues — and develops the generative AI tool called Grok. The company announced Monday that it was launching a new suite of AI tools for U.S. government users known as “Grok for Government.” The platform is now available to purchase by federal agencies through the General Services Administration, according to a post on X, which Musk also owns.

In a blog post published Monday, Jim Kelly, Google Public Sector’s vice president of federal sales, noted that the company will provide the Pentagon its Cloud Tensor Processing Units for training AI models, AI-powered agents via Google’s Agentspace, and access to the company’s infrastructure based in the contiguous United States.

“These advanced AI solutions will enable the DoD to effectively address defense challenges and scale the adoption of agentic AI across enterprise systems to drive innovation and efficiency with agile, proven technology,” Kelly wrote.

The announcement is the latest step the Defense Department has taken in recent months to accelerate adoption of AI-enabled capabilities developed by commercial companies — many of which have recently announced new business ventures focused on national security.

In June, Anthropic introduced a custom set of its Claude Gov AI models that are tailored specifically to defense use cases, ranging from operational planning to intelligence analysis. The same month, OpenAI launched a new initiative called “OpenAI for Government” that expands on its current partnerships with the Defense Department and other U.S. government agencies — including custom AI models for national security.

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The capability — dubbed “Swarm” — is in nascent development, but envisioned as a multi-classification digital environment where guardians from various units can come together against simulated adversaries. According to Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba, head of the service’s Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM), early versions of Swarm were built for the Space Force’s primary mission planning and operational support exercise series known as Space Flag.

“The Space Flag that we just completed here about a month and a half ago, many of the threats that we faced were simulated in that environment,” Sejba said Thursday during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute. “You had crews from across the Space Force that were actually executing over a two-week period to understand how they would actually perform in the environment.”

Sejba noted that the environment is currently only available to STARCOM on-prem, and that the service is focused on delivering the “initial aspect of Swarm” by the end of 2025. At the same time, the Space Force is planning to move the capability to the cloud sometime in the next two years so it can scale the size and scope of its future training and test exercises, he added.

“We’re quickly building not only the red threats that we need to represent, but also all of the blue systems that are coming online over the next several years,” Sejba said. “Then we’re quickly moving it to the cloud so we can get to a distributed training capability that allows each of those guardian units to actually be able to [train] from their home stations, but do it over and over.”

That means guardians from multiple units in different locations can simultaneously train in the simulated environment and prepare for more complex threats, such as fighting against multiple adversaries at once, he noted. 

Swarm is part of the Space Force’s broader effort to modernize and build out its training infrastructure — a task that is both one of Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman’s top priorities and a significant challenge for the Pentagon’s newest service. The service’s flagship development program is the Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI), which seeks to combine digital, cyber and live-training ranges under one system.

Developing OTTI from scratch, however, has been a challenge. Sejba highlighted that while the other services have had decades to build their test and training infrastructures, the Space Force has only had a few years to do so.

STARCOM also recently divided the OTTI effort into two distinct paths, Sejba noted. One tackles the need for a distributed training capability that is being built out by Swarm, while the other focuses on developing a high-fidelity, realistic simulation environment — a system akin to the Air Force and Navy’s Joint Simulation Environment (JSE), which is used to train pilots for complex combat scenarios.

“Something like JSE is something that we will eventually need. I would argue we probably need it sooner rather than later so that we’ve got our own capability to do some of this high-end testing [and] training,” Sejba said. “When I explore something like JSE, in that kind of environment you can very quickly translate that to what that might look like for space and the kind of high-end training that you’d be able to do for guardians in the near future.”

Sejba acknowledged that a limited budget likely means it will be several years before STARCOM has a true JSE-like training environment, but the Space Force is in the meantime leveraging prior work done by the Air Force and Navy to develop the system.

“We know what it’s going to take to be able to adopt that environment,” he said. “We’ve done plenty of research to see if that’s the right environment for us to go forward with, and we certainly know what some of the other services need also from a space effects standpoint.”

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