Leveraging Data Use With Industry’s Help Among USAF Priorities, Official Says

Gen. James Slife, newly confirmed U.S. Air Force vice chief of staff, said he will be turning to industry for assistance in using data more effectively to improve the service branch’s training, maintenance and other operations.

Speaking at a recent AFCEA luncheon, Slife observed that many USAF databases are unorganized for generating service-wide solutions. He pointed out that the service needs a more holistic approach to data and artificial intelligence use to solve problems across the organization, DefenseScoop reported Friday.

One major problem the general saw is the large volume of raw data the service gathers, making the information hard to analyze and transmit manually. He identified as another challenge the service’s stringent classification policies that can deter access to data and their use.

The general cited the terabytes of data that the F-35 stealth fighter jet gathers from its missions as an example. The collected information often gets deleted rather than stored and categorized automatically, he said.

Slife pointed out that learnings from the missions’ collected data, such as wingman errors and bad radio calls, can be incorporated into future missions through algorithms and more USAF AI capabilities. He plans to tap the Air Force’s Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office to work on the service’s data inefficiencies.