The Defense Department’s (DoD) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) is ramping up its contract opportunities with new private sector partners, a Pentagon official said today.
Quentin McCoy, the CDAO’s director of procurement, discussed his office’s focus on diversity and increasing procurement opportunities with new private organizations during the NetAPP U.S. Public Sector Insight Xtra Conference 2024, hosted by GovExec on June 4.
“We need to promote hyper collaboration … with industry partners so that we can get the best deals, get the best capabilities, and win the wars,” said McCoy.
McCoy made it clear that the most critical action that private industry can take is to closely examine closely the materials that the CDAO puts out on its tradewindai.com website.
“We put a lot of stuff out there, because I know it takes time and energy for industry partners to respond to everything,” he said. “But we really do look for industry to respond and that does have impact on how they go forward.”
McCoy explained that much of what CDAO makes public on the website stems directly from issues that DoD is facing in integrating AI technologies.
“They’re giving us problems that we’re posting on, so everything that’s happening in the building and at CDAO, you’re seeing it right there on that platform,” he said.
McCoy also talked about the department’s work to promote small business opportunities as part of the process of integrating AI at DoD.
“We have a unique set of nontraditional small businesses,” he said. “And we are promoting the heck out of them to solve problems within the department using our tradewind platform, posting problems, and we’re looking to you to help with that.”
