AI R&D INVESTMENTS DASHBOARD

View Full Text:  AI R&D INVESTMENTS DASHBOARD

In support of Executive Order 13859, "Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence", and The National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan: 2019 Update, NITRD worked with Federal agencies to establish a process to accurately account for AI R&D investments, given that R&D in AI intersects with multiple PCAs. (AI R&D Investments Dashboard, Table 1, footnote 4, gives examples of distinctions between AI and other PCAs.)

The FY2020 budget request set a baseline for reporting and tracking AI R&D investments, consistent with the AI Executive Order. Because of the difference in the reporting process and AI scope newly defined last year, the AI investments reported in the NITRD Supplement to The President's FY2021 Budget are only comparable to other NITRD-reported AI investments.

AI R&D Investments Dashboard Table 1 shows two types of AI investments—those under the AI PCA and those with primary emphases in areas other than AI, which are reported in other PCAs. The FY2021 funding level shown for AI in Table 1 indicates both the nondefense Federal programs directly related to AI ($912 million) and the AI-related efforts reported in the other PCAs ($590.5 million). Together, these total a Federal FY2021 nondefense budget request in AI of $1.5 billion, a 34.4 percent increase over the FY2020 enacted investments and a 54.3 percent increase over the FY2020 budget request. 

For more information on the Federal role in maintaining American leadership in AI, please see Artificial Intelligence for the American People.

View Full Text:  AI R&D INVESTMENTS DASHBOARD

NITRD Supplement to the President's FY2021 Budget

View Full Text:  FY2021-NITRD-Supplement.pdf

Information technology (IT) and its enabling computing, networking, and software technologies have radically transformed human society across the globe over the course of just two generations. American innovators, companies, and government led this transformation. As global competition for leadership in high-performance computing (HPC) began to escalate in the 1980s, U.S. legislators saw the imperative to proactively guide research and development (R&D) of HPC and other IT innovations. In the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991, Congress launched what is now called the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program; Congress most recently reauthorized the NITRD Program in the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act of 2017. The Program’s mandate is to coordinate Federal R&D to identify, develop, and transition into use the secure, advanced IT, HPC, networking, and software capabilities needed by the Federal Government, and to foster public-private partnerships that provide world-leading IT capabilities to the Nation. In support of its role in the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), the NITRD Subcommittee leads the Federal efforts to coordinate high-impact R&D to meet the Nation’s soaring needs in information technologies for the future. It also seeks to build, support, and leverage a diverse, highly skilled American IT workforce and to cultivate vibrant R&D alliances with American academic, private-sector, and nonprofit entities, and with international like-minded bodies. The NITRD Program currently coordinates the IT R&D and technology-transfer activities of 23 Federal member agencies and some 50 other participating agencies.

NITRD Supplement to the President's FY2021 Budget is a supplement to the President’s FY2021 Budget Request to Congress. This document reports actual investments for FY2019, estimated investments for FY2020, and requested funding levels for FY2021 by agency and Program Component Area (PCA) for all NITRD R&D programs. It also reports specific agency investments for artificial intelligence and advanced wireless communications. Following Congressional mandate, the Supplement also describes key R&D programs and coordination activities planned for FY2021 by the Federal agencies participating in the NITRD Program. An appendix to the Supplement, the FY2021 Federal Cybersecurity R&D Strategic Plan Implementation Roadmap, lists existing and proposed Federal R&D projects and programs that address the Nation’s critical cybersecurity challenges; it is available at https://www.nitrd.gov/pubs/FY2021-Cybersecurity-RD-Roadmap.pdf.

View Full Text:  FY2021-NITRD-Supplement.pdf

FY2021 Federal Cybersecurity R&D Strategic Plan Implementation Roadmap

View Full Text:  FY2021-Cybersecurity-RD-Roadmap.pdf

This document provides FY2021 implementation plans for the 2019 Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan (Plan), developed by the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program’s Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA) Interagency Working Group (IWG). This Strategic Plan Implementation Roadmap is provided per statutory requirement for public provision of this information pursuant to the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014, Public Law 113-274, Section 201(a)(2)(D), Implementation Roadmap, and under direction from the NITRD Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Science and Technology Enterprise.

This document accompanies the NITRD Supplement to the President's FY2021 Budget. In the NITRD budget supplement, agencies participating in the CSIA IWG report their research and development (R&D) programs in the Cybersecurity and Privacy Program Component Area in alignment with the research objectives of the Plan.

View Full Text:  FY2021-Cybersecurity-RD-Roadmap.pdf

NITRD Newsletter - May 2020

View Full Text:  NITRD-Newsletter-052020.pdf

This revamped newsletter includes many interesting areas for you to explore:

• Snippets: Well, they are exactly that, snippets (with links) to fascinating agency projects in networking and information technology.
• Topic of the Day: This month we are examining wireless spectrum, 5G, and related technologies, but first we explain to our readers in the Topic of the Day section what exactly is 5G and importantly, how it will benefit the American public.
• Agency Corner: For our first revised newsletter, we chose DARPA to highlight in our Agency Corner section because they have brought to fruition many of the technologies that we associate with our Topic of the Day, wireless spectrum and communications.
• Innovation through NITRD: We also introduce our readers to NITRD’s Wireless Spectrum Research and Development Interagency Working Group who coordinates Federal agency wireless spectrum activities.
• Event Highlights: We highlight here two workshops recently held on this important and timely topic.
• NITRD Staff: Lastly and certainly not least, we acquaint our readers with three NITRD staff members and a recent intern. NITRD strongly supports STEM education and workforce development in the information technology fields and so we are proud to draw attention to their accomplishments at NITRD.

We invite you to take a look at this newly revised newsletter to see the transformative innovations that have found an important place in the American life and challenge you to Discover NITRD Innovations for You!

View Full Text:  NITRD-Newsletter-052020.pdf

Announcement: Tagging website information related to COVID-19

To increase the online visibility of important COVID-19 information, Federal Chief Information Officers have been directed to incorporate the new Schema.org vocabulary for tagging websites that contain information about COVID-19 prevention measures, disease spread statistics, etc. These new tags are available in Schema.org Version 7.0, released March 17, 2020 (http://blog.schema.org/2020/03/schema-for-coronavirus-special.html).

In addition to the direction to Federal Chief Information Officers, state and local government agencies as well as non-profit and private sector organization are encouraged to utilize these tags for publishing and disseminating information related to COVID-19.

Follow this link for instructions to add structured data to COVID-19 announcements, with examples.

Also, the National Science Foundation-funded projects seeking to establish an Open Knowledge Network are actively working on creating enhanced knowledge graphs to handle additional critical information that is being published on a variety of sites, including local, county, and state governments; hospitals; and other organizations. This includes information on local incidence rates, hospital admission rates, and more. Tagging these data appropriately will enable effective use by downstream analytics and visualization applications that would benefit the public. Those interested in contributing to this effort should contact COVID19-OKN@nitrd.gov.

There is also an effort underway to develop tags for the scientific information related to the coronavirus, to enable faster discovery and use/re-use of that information. That work is being pursued by the Open Knowledge Network along with Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health, and others. Those interested in contributing to that effort should contact COVID19-Science@nitrd.gov.