Booz Allen-Hamilton Secures Pentagon Artificial Intelligence Contract

We take a closer look into Booz Allen-Hamilton's massive artificial intelligence contract with the Pentagon and what it entails for both parties. 

Who is Booz Allen-Hamilton?
Booz Allen-Hamilton is a global firm of approximately 26,300 diverse, passionate, and exceptional people driven to excel, do right, and realize positive change in everything that they do.
They bring bold thinking and a desire to be the best in consulting, analytics, digital solutions, engineering, and cyber, and with industries ranging from defence to health to energy to international development.

They celebrate and value diversity in all its forms; it’s something that they truly value as a multicultural community of problem solvers. They believe in corporate and individual citizenship that make communities better places for all.
Booz Allen-Hamilton has one guiding purpose—to empower people to change the world. Its founder, Edwin Booz said it best: “Start with character… and fear not the future.” They bring a ferocious integrity to not only train our clients to tackle the problems they face today but to help them change the status quo for tomorrow. Each day, they imagine, invent, and deliver new ways to better serve their employees, their clients, and the world. 

About the contact:
Booz Allen Hamilton won a five-year, $800 million task order to provide artificial intelligence services to the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC).

Under the contract award, announced by the General Services Administration and the JAIC on May 18, Booz Allen Hamilton will provide a “wide mix of technical services and products” to support the JAIC, a DoD entity dedicated to advancing the use of artificial intelligence across the department.
The contracting giant will provide the JAIC with “data labeling, data management, data conditioning, AI product development, and the transition of AI products into new and existing fielded programs,” according to the GSA news release.

“The delivered AI products will leverage the power of DoD data to enable a transformational shift across the Department that will give the U.S. a definitive information advantage to prepare for future warfare operations,” the release said.

The contract will support the JAIC’s new joint warfighting mission initiative, launched earlier this year. The initiative includes “Joint All-Domain Command and Control; autonomous ground reconnaissance and surveillance; accelerated sensor-to-shooter timelines; operations center workflows; and deliberate and dynamic targeting solutions,” said JAIC spokesperson Arlo Abrahamson told C4ISRNET in January.

The joint warfighting initiative is looking for "AI solutions that help manage information so humans can make decisions safely and quickly in battle,” Abrahamson said. The award to Booz Allen Hamilton will push that effort forward, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, the center’s director, said in a statement.

“The Joint Warfighting mission initiative will provide the Joint Force with AI-enabled solutions vital to improving operational effectiveness in all domains. This contract will be an important element as the JAIC increasingly focuses on fielding AI-enabled capabilities that meet the needs of the warfighter and decision-makers at every level," Shanahan said.

The award to Booz Allen Hamilton was made by the GSA through its Alliant 2 Government-wide Acquisition Contract, a vehicle designed to provide artificial intelligence services to the federal government. The GSA and JAIC have been partners since last September, when the pair announced that they were teaming up as part of the GSA’s Centers of Excellence initiative, a program meant to accelerate modernization with agencies across government.

“The CoE and the JAIC continue to learn from each other and identify lessons that can be shared broadly across the federal space,” said Anil Cheriyan, director of the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services office, which administers the Centers of Excellence program. “It is important to work closely with our customers to acquire the best in digital adoption to meet their needs.