Navy develops strategy to weaponize data, AI

The Department of the Navy is officially weaponizing data and artificial intelligence.

In a memorandum signed by Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, the strategy unfurling across the branch it set to allow the department to "to equip and empower all DON missions with the data and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities necessary to rapidly learn and adapt to fight better tomorrow," according to a Navy release.

"This strategy positions the Department of the Navy to out-learn and out-fight any adversary by rapidly deploying data and artificial intelligence," said Cao. "It is our roadmap to building an ‘AI-first' Fleet, one that turns information into warfighting advantage and enables faster, better decisions."

The problem, the release notes, is how to convert large swaths of data and optimize it within the Navy's technology ecosystem and turn it into "mission-relevant actionable information."

Positing that speed is the name of the game, the department's integration and utilization of AI and other data is crucial, it noted, to remain ahead of adversaries and to deploy effective combat operations at sea.

In order to do so, the Navy laid out a sequential five-step digital framework, dubbed the Bits2Effects Cycle, in which the branch:

1. Collects: automatically captures data from sensors, weapons systems and platforms rather than discarding it.
2. Data Transport: transporting data to processing environments, particularly from deployed platforms in communications-degraded environments.
3. Classification and Access: increasingly automating security markings and access controls that enable rather than prevent data use.
4. Development and Analytics: providing AI and ML tools, computing infrastructure and trained personnel to transform data into capabilities.
5. Testing and Employing Effects: delivering data-driven effects to the warfighter and feeding resulting data and lessons back into the cycle.

While investment in traditional assets, such as personnel, weapons systems and munitions, remains at the core of the Navy, the release states that access to modern technology alone is "insufficient" and that the weaponization of data and AI allows the branch to "accelerate data-driven advantages that dramatically improve warfighting effects, optimize our essential business operations, and protect our competitive edge as the world's dominant maritime force."

Information is power, and the Navy intends to harness it.