WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense this week announced two new tech hires, adding a former DoD DOGE teammember and an Air Force cybersecurity officer to its ranks.
The former DOGE member, Gavin Kliger, was named today as chief data officer for the Pentagon.
“We are in a global competition for military AI dominance, and America must build on its leadership to extend our advantage over adversaries,” Kliger, said in an announcement, posted to X. “My mission is to integrate the unparalleled innovation of America’s private sector with the Department’s operational expertise to rapidly deliver advanced AI capabilities to our warfighters. By driving pace-setting projects with wartime urgency, we will ensure cutting-edge technology translates into decisive battlefield advantages for the United States.”
During his time with the DoD’s DOGE team, Kliger helped oversee the launch of GenAI.mil, which allows servicemembers to access versions of generative AI tools.
Kliger is stepping into the role at a tense time between the Pentagon and the AI community, following a very public fight between senior Pentagon officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and AI company Anthropic over the terms of use of its Claude AI model. Most recently, the DoD followed through on threats to label Anthropic a supply chain risk.
Earlier this week, James “Aaron” Bishop was named as the next DoD deputy chief information officer for cybersecurity and chief information security officer. Bishop was most recently the CISO of the Department of the Air Force.
Bishop will take over for Dave McKeown, the DCIO for cybersecurity, who will be leaving government after over 40 years. Katie Arrington had previously been the DoD CISO and acting CIO before departing the Pentagon to pursue a role in the private sector as chief information officer for ION Q.
“The DCIO(CS)-CISO is a critical position, responsible for providing expert policy, technical, program, and Department-wide oversight support to the DoW CIO on all #cybersecurity matters,” Bishop’s new boss, CIO Kirsten Davies wrote in a social media post announcing the hire.
Bishop is also stepping into the middle of a potentially turbulent time for DoD cybersecurity amid the conflict with Iran. Tehran is known to have fairly sophisticated technical ability to launch cyber attacks. While industry observers have said they haven’t seen any large-scale, state-sponsored cyber campaigns, some have reported dubious claims of relatively unsophisticated hackivist-style cyberattacks.