The Pentagon’s Joint AI Center (JAIC) has awarded Deloitte Consulting a $106 million, four-year task order to build out the Joint Common Foundation, a cloud-based AI development toolkit.
The JAIC was founded in 2018, and is tasked with accelerating AI adoption across the Department of Defense. One aspect of its mission is to centralize work on AI to reduce redundant work and provide powerful AI tools to smaller organizations in the DoD.
While different DoD organizations have been doing innovative work on AI, they can rarely build on each other’s work, and are often retreading the same ground. As such, the JAIC set out to build a common set of AI development tools, shared training data for algorithms, and a common environment to use them in.
The JAIC earlier this week selected Deloitte as the prime integrator for the Joint Common Foundation (JCF), overseeing systems engineering, technology, and innovation. Deloitte will be responsible for managing the technologies and subcontractors needed to build the JCF, as well as operating, maintaining, and keeping the system secure.
The contract is worth $31 million in the first year, and has three option years for a total of up to $106 million. Deloitte beat out three unnamed firms to win the government contract.
“The common foundation will…provide enterprise access to AI tools and data to help synchronize AI projects, reduce development redundancy, and enable the broad deployment of AI-enabled solutions to the tactical edge where front-line operators can benefit from these capabilities,” stated a press release from the JAIC.
The JAIC in 2019 expanded its focus to joint warfighting operations, where AI can be used to increase combat effectiveness through accelerated decision-making and operations. The organization in June selected Booz Allen to act as prime integrator for its joint warfighting initiative. The contract is worth up to $800 million over 5 years.