GovCon News

Poland is acquiring hundreds of Spike tank-killing missiles through Rafael Advanced Defense Systems' longstanding Polish industry partner, Mesko, which will produce the missile parts and assemble the weapon in Poland. According to Rafael, the order placed by the Polish defense ministry is worth almost $100 million. Poland's way of acquiring the Spike missile differs from the approach taken by other European customers of the missile, whose production is typically performed by EuroSpike, a joint venture between Diehl Defence, Rheinmetall and Rafael, in Germany, Defense News reported.

The Department of Energy is awarding $40 million in funding to develop distributed resilient systems. Ceren Susut, the department’s acting associate director of science for advanced scientific computing research, said the program will help figure out how science can help in next-generation workflows as it deals with larger data sets and new tools. A collaboration involving the University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, and three DOE national laboratories developing novel methods in swarm intelligence for distributed resource allocation is one of the beneficiaries, the DOE said.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, in cooperation with SK hynix, is set to demonstrate recent enhancements to the Key Value Store Computational Storage Device at the 2023 Flash Memory Summit. Gary Grider, leader of LANL's high performance computing division, said changes to the device will provide users with resources to approach data analytics of large-scale simulation projects. New features include the secondary index functionality, reducing KV-CSD's data retrieval and enabling an index to extend beyond the primary key into the value, the laboratory said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is seeking assistance in developing the FEMA Data Exchange cloud-based delivery service in accordance with Agile-based performance metrics. According to a recent request for information, FEMA is also looking to implement artificial intelligence and machine learning in the enterprise data and analytics modernization project. Responses to the RFI are due Aug. 15, GovCon Wire reported Monday.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity is seeking industry input on the security risks associated with generative artificial intelligence and large language model technologies. In a request for information, IARPA asked organizations to share frameworks that helped them better understand and mitigate LLM threats and vulnerabilities. IARPA Program Manager Tim McKinnon said the RFI aims to enable the Intelligence Community to safely adopt the technology, which is expected to improve analyst work. Interested parties must submit their responses by Aug. 21, DefenseScoop reported.

The Department of State has stopped working on an artificial intelligence project that sought to test the connection between the activities of overseas social media and violent extremist organizations. According to the agency, the AI tool was designed to predict outcomes using statistical models. The pilot project was also applied to COVID-19 cases and violent incidents linked with social media posts, the department added. Notably, the State Department did not say how the experimental AI tool was designed or tested and why the project was halted, FedScoop reported.

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and partner institutions have sought to understand how interactions between natural organic matter and positively charged ions usually found in water from dissolved minerals and salts can cause junk to pile up on the surface of membranes for water treatment applications. In a study published in the Journal of Membrane Science, the team harnessed synchrotron characterization techniques to assess the surface and bulk compositions of fouled membranes. Experiments showed that "synergistic" fouling, which involves contaminants competing with each other, could induce less fouling, the laboratory said Monday.

Amazon Web Services has launched a cyber grant program for K12 school districts and state departments of education in the United States. Under the program, the company will commit $20 million to recipient schools and support the upskilling and reskilling of K12 IT staff through AWS Skill Builder, a digital learning center that offers more than 600 no-cost courses. According to AWS, the program is designed to help schools implement cloud-based cybersecurity solutions. The effort supports the federal government’s project of improving the cybersecurity resilience of K12 education communities, AWS said.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded the University of Southern California a $9 million cost reimbursement contract for processor reconfiguration for wideband spectrum sensing. The contract will see the institution develop processors capable of providing autonomous radio frequency systems with decision-directed situational awareness about complex and uncertain electromagnetic environments. It will be performed in Arlington, Virginia, and should be completed by November 2026, the Department of Defense said.

Deploying artificial intelligence on biometric health monitors can aid military leaders assess soldier readiness, according to Sgt. Maj. Michael Weimer, the new sergeant major of the Army. In an interview, the former top enlisted leader of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command described himself as a tech person and acknowledge the importance of data to be informed. He also shared that he participated in a sleep study wherein he had to wear an Oura ring, a smart fitness tracker. Weirmer also shared that the USASOC uses health monitoring technology to monitor candidate well-being during the selection process, DefenseOne reported.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has warned the general public about unlicensed virtual asset trading platforms (VATP), claiming to have submitted license applications with the agency to secure business opportunities. According to the SFC, unlicensed VATPs have been setting up new entities to provide virtual asset services, and their offerings may not comply with legal and regulatory requirements under the agency's new licensing regime. VATPs are also prone to violating Hong Kong's Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (AMLO) whenever they misrepresent their services. Under section 53ZRG of AMLO, an offense is committed if a VATP enters into an agreement to deal with crypto assets through misrepresentation, the Securities and Futures Commission said Monday.

A U.S. Department of State spokesperson said the U.S. government will continue implementing existing sanctions against Russia and North Korea as concerns grow over the two countries' military cooperation. According to Matthew Miller, the U.S. government has clarified to Russia and North Korea that it is concerned about how North Korea is helping Russia's ongoing military aggression against Ukraine. Miller added that the United States will continue to condemn North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Miller's comments come amid speculations that North Korea will increase its military support to Russia, Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday.