JAIC Wants to Develop Enterprise Cloud Fabric to Accommodate AI Projects

The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center wants to connect AI projects across the Department of Defense enterprise with the cloud environment that best suits them.

To do so, JAIC plans to establish a joint common fabric of development environments that will provide universal access to the various cloud and software development platforms used by different DOD services and components, C4ISRNET reported.

The enterprise cloud fabric would solve barriers to pursuing AI projects, according to Nand Mulchandani, chief technology officer at JAIC.

Mulchandani told C4ISRNET that some components have potential AI workloads that they are currently unfit to handle. With the enterprise cloud fabric, he said these components can now access the best cloud for their workload.

He added that the fabric concept will promote a common identity across these different clouds and enable the migration of workloads from one cloud to another as needed—a feat that is restricted as of now.

When the concept was first introduced, Mulchandani said it was met with positive responses from components across the DOD. He said there was a strong willingness to work together since each component had an area of expertise and something that they were lacking.

The JAIC team responsible for creating the Joint Common Foundation, a development environment to test, validate and field AI capabilities, has also been tasked with developing a portion of the enterprise cloud fabric.

Moving forward, the AI hub intends to outline the basic processes that can be standardized, including security and identity, to facilitate the migration of projects and data between clouds.