WASHINGTON. The Center for Public Policy Innovation (CPPI) and the Homeland Security and Defense Forum (HSDF) -- which held a virtual symposium in October 2020 it called "Artificial Intelligence: Transforming the Government Mission" -- released its report on the symposium, in which the participants conclude that the most critical aspect of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the U.S. federal government is creating a secure supply chain and ensuring that security is built in from the beginning into the government’s IT infrastructure, including in agencies' hardware, software, and cloud services.

WASHINGTON. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) -- a department within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) -- has notified the U.S. Congress that it has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the government of Italy regarding two Gulfstream G550 aircraft with airborne intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare (AISREW) mission systems and related equipment for an estimated cost of $500 million. 

UNITED STATES and AUSTRALIA. The U.S. and Australia have launched the first agreement to continuously develop a virtual cyber training range. Both nations signed the Cyber Training Capabilities Project Arrangement Nov. 3. The bilateral, international agreement is intended to enable U.S. Cyber Command to incorporate Australian Defense Force feedback into Cybercom's simulated training domain, the Persistent Cyber Training Environment (PCTE).

CAMARILLO, Calif. and BELLEVUE, Wash. Analog and mixed-signal semiconductor maker Semtech has joined forces with internet protocol (IP) networking company Ripl Networks to deploy an IP mesh, 3D tracking solution for foreign guest and fleet assets at naval ports under a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). 

ARLINGTON, Va. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) enacted on December 1, 2020 what it calls the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), a series of requirements that will become part of all DoD Requests for Information; the ability of contractors to bid on certain types of work with the DoD will depend on their CMMC status going forward.  

ARLINGTON, Va. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)  and the Australian defense department have announced a bilateral effort to advance the development of air-breathing hypersonic technologies.  

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. The U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has chosen intelligent-vision maker Immervision (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) to develop and supply a wide-angle computer vision camera for small unmanned aerial systems (sUASs) as part of the DoD's Blue UAS Framework effort.