AI is the greatest IT disruption of our time, promising to transform society and industry. I’ve never seen a technology with as much potential to boost the security, health and prosperity of our country. It’s estimated to make an economic impact measured in trillions of dollars.
The U.S. federal government has been moving quickly, especially this past year, to help advance our nation’s adoption of this transformative technology. From the White House to agency leaders and department heads in dozens of federal organizations, the government is acutely aware of the competitive international environment, with more than 35 countries that have already announced AI strategies.
2019 has witnessed major developments, and will host the next major opportunity for government and industry leaders to come together to advance federal AI adoption:
January: The intelligence community released its Augmenting Intelligence using Machines Initiative — a strategy designed to use AI to better meet intelligence missions.
February: The White House Executive Order, Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, highlighted the need for technical standards, a workforce armed with AI skills and an international environment that supports U.S. AI innovation.
February: The Department of Defense released a summary of its strategy to accelerate research, development and adoption of AI capabilities across the service branches. The Pentagon, working through the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, is focusing its efforts on predictive maintenance and disaster relief.
February: The Army activated its Artificial Intelligence Task Force at Carnegie Mellon University, focused on equipment maintenance and humanitarian aid.
March: The federal government launched AI.gov to make it easier to access all of the governmental AI initiatives currently underway and provide a better understanding of the national AI strategy.
April: The Government Services Administration announced it was forming a community of practice for robotic process automation. The effort will bring together leaders in AI from various agencies to share best practices and learn from each other.
May: The U.S. joined 40 nations in signing a set of AI principles under the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, marking the first intergovernmental policy guidelines for AI.
May: The Postal Service conducted a series of autonomous test drives between Phoenix and Dallas, using self-driving truck prototypes from NVIDIA partner TuSimple.
June: The National AI R&D Strategic Plan Update established a set of objectives for federally funded AI research, identifying eight strategic priorities.
August: NIST announced guidelines for ethical and technical AI standards, which will promote responsible use of AI and the study of the technology.
September: The Department of Energy announced the establishment of its Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office, noting AI’s role in national security and cybersecurity, grid resilience, environmental sustainability, smart cities, water resource management and the discovery of new materials.
September: The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a nearly $1 billion federal commitment toward non-defense AI research. This comes a year after DARPA dedicated its AI Next campaign, which will commit $2 billion over five years.
September: The Air Force published its AI strategy, also announcing an agreement to partner with MIT.
All of these efforts were the culmination of collaboration between AI leaders in industry and government, and many discussions of how to successfully drive AI progress together.
At NVIDIA, we appreciate the enormous value of this collaboration and take our role in promoting and continuing the conversation seriously. We’ve created a forum for continued collaboration with our annual GTC DC conference, where 3,000 leaders will come together to understand how to harness AI technology for business, government and citizen services.
Whether your agency is focused on using AI to improve cybersecurity, healthcare or transportation, GTC DC will help you understand how to propel federal government progress into greater action. The conference offers training, networking, exhibits and 100+ sessions that offer the opportunity to:
- Envision the future of AI and computing and explore concrete advice to improve AI applications with a keynote from NVIDIA VP of Accelerated Computing Ian Buck, inventor of CUDA, the leading platform for accelerated parallel computing.
- Hear the latest thinking on policies that will drive AI advancement with a keynote from U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios, followed by a panel on the national AI strategy featuring CSET founder and National Security AI Commissioner Jason Matheny, White House OSTP’s Lynne Parker; NIST’s Elham Tabassi and ITIF President Robert Atkinson.
- Find out the status of agency adoption across the federal government, with an update from U.S. CIO Suzette Kent.
- Hear healthcare leaders, including NVIDIA’s VP of Healthcare Kimberly Powell, Veterans Affairs’ Gil Alterovitz, and NIH’s Susan Gregurick discuss AI’s ability to improve healthcare access, quality and cost.
- Learn how AI can help with cybersecurity challenges with experts including House Committee on Homeland Security’s Moira Bergin and CISA’s Daniel Kroese.
- Understand how AI can enable predictive maintenance on everything from helicopters to satellites in a session led by Greg Kracprzynski, senior analytics manager at Lockheed Martin.
- Join the Innovating AI: Executive Summit with our partner Booz Allen Hamilton to address real-world experiences, deployment scenarios and a groundbreaking announcement.
No matter where your agency or organization is on its AI journey, there’s something to learn at GTC DC. If you haven’t sufficiently focused on this area, now is the time to learn, because AI has the potential to provide unprecedented capabilities and solve previously unsolved problems.
Join us Nov. 4-6 at the Ronald Reagan Center. Visit the GTC DC website to learn more or read my post on the top five reasons to attend. 2019 was a major year for AI advancement — but so much more is possible when leaders and experts come together to drive change.