M2CC MARCH 2024

14 | M2CC - News www.m2cc.us MARCH 2024 EDITION WWW.M2CC.US
Newsletter | 15
Pentagon’s Priority
on AI Spending
Could Shield it
From Cuts
March 11 under Defense financing caps set by
the bipartisan debt limit deal, which holds down
spending across the department.
The reason why AI might escape cuts is twofold:
There’s a growing prioritization of AI within the
department, and lawmakers who are convinced
of the technology’s potential are championing the
Defense Department’s expenditures in this area,
even as they look to trim spending elsewhere.
“Our adversaries understand that it is one area in
which they will attack us,” Sen. Mike Rounds,
R-S.D., a member of the Armed Services
Committee and a leading Senate voice on AI
issues, said last month in an interview.
“We have to be able to not only respond to those
attacks, but we’ve got to stay ahead of all of our
adversaries with regard to the deployment of
AI,” Rounds said. “The defense of our country is
number one; it is more important than any of the
other things we do, and AI is a critical part of it.”
WASHINGTON — As the Pentagon
prepares to release its fiscal 2025 budget
proposal, experts in artificial intelligence
are hopeful that planned investments in
the technology will be safeguarded from
concerns that could cut into other defense
accounts.
The department’s spending on AI in fiscal
2024 has been hamstrung by the lack of
full-year appropriations so far, leaving
money requested for such operations
unapproved and inaccessible. Officials
at the Pentagon’s central hub for AI have
had to “cannibalize some things in order to
be able to keep other things alive,” chief
officer Craig Martell told reporters last
month.
And while the current spending difficulties
look to be rectified soon, DOD is set to
release its fiscal 2025 budget request on