Air Force Launching New Artificial Intelligence ‘Center of Excellence’ 

The Department of the Air Force will establish a new center for artificial intelligence development, building on existing partnerships with MIT, Stanford University, and Microsoft, according to outgoing Chief Information Officer Venice Goodwine. 

“We’re establishing a Department of the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence,” she said at AFCEA International’s TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore May 7.  

Air Force Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer Susan Davenport will oversee the center along with other activities, Goodwine told Air & Space Forces Magazine 

MIT already houses the Air Force’s AI accelerator and Stanford University’s School of Engineering operates the DAF-Stanford AI Studio, Goodwine said. The studio recently completed its first project, a 10-day course on “Test of AI and Emerging Technologies” for students at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, in California, taught at Stanford by university faculty. The course was designed to help students prepare for testing and evaluating AI-enabled autonomous aircraft and satellites.  

The new AI Center of Excellence will leverage Microsoft infrastructure, Goodwine said, “because we had an investment already in our Innovation Landing Zone.” 

Air Force Cyberworx, an innovation at the Air Force Academy, hosts the Innovation Landing Zone, a secure, accredited cloud infrastructure intended for prototyping “mission solutions for data and artificial intelligence, devsecops and infrastructure,” according ot its website. 

Attempts to reach the Air Force Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office for comment went unanswered.  

“AI has a broad continuum,” Goodwine told the AFCEA audience. “Yes, I can use AI for summarizing briefs in the legal world, or I can use AI for productivity, but I also can use AI for AI-enabled autonomy. So when you have a continuum that broad, how do you make sure that the use cases or the tools that you use or the investments that you’re making enable the [service’s] strategic objectives? So the AI Center of Excellence in the Air Force is going to do that.” 

Goodwine said the entire Defense Department needs enterprise-level IT solutions, and urged contractors to find partners so they can scale offerings across the whole of DoD. 

“We have to learn to think differently,” Goodwine said. When industry “comes to the Department of Defense, you go to the Army, to the Air Force, Space Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, all separately. I’m going to challenge you to not do that. I need you to do some extreme teaming and think about the capability [you’re offering] and how it will be employed for the department, so that we don’t have to try and make those relationships. If you will do that extreme teaming for us [first] and bring it to us as a solution that takes into account land, sea, air, space.” 

The military services cannot afford separate agreements. “We’re thinking about how do we spend our dollars wisely,” Goodwine said afterwards in a brief interview. “I can’t have everyone spending IT dollars. We need to make sure those dollars are focused on the right strategic investment.” 

Extreme teaming means leveraging current investments first and identifying offsets that can help pay for new expenses, Goodwine said. “The first thing I’m going to ask is [how can I] use my current investment. … There’s no new money. So if you want me to do [something new], you’ve got to help me with that. That’s what I mean by extreme teaming.”  

The session opened with a warm tribute to Goodwine, who said her appearance at the event was her last official act as Air Force CIO. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Susan Lawrence, president and CEO of AFCEA International, thanked her for her service and awarded Goodwine the AFCEA Chair Superior Performance Award.  

“Her passion for building bridges across government, industry in academia, is matched only by her steadfast leadership and generosity of spirit,” Lawrence said.