New Way Now: Air Force Research Laboratory powers the future of defense with Google Cloud

Описание: Featuring: Dan Berrigan, lead of Worldwide Research Collaboration and Digital Capabilities Directorate for the Air Force Research Laboratory

Executive summary: The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which helps power the innovation arm of the United States Air Force, embraced the Google Cloud ecosystem to accelerate scientific discovery, streamline operations, and address national security challenges. AFRL established a solid technology foundation — leveraging App Engine, Cloud Build, Cloud Run, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Google Workspace, and more — empowering its researchers to innovate at scale, safely and securely. Now, AFRL has all the building blocks it needs to move from pilots to prototypes to production quickly and scale up to thousands of users in minutes while maintaining compliance with strict industry regulations.

Challenge: As the Air Force’s incubator for new technology, the AFRL provides subject matter expertise and develops new technologies and capabilities that reduce risk for the military service branch. However, the ARFL previously relied on manual, time-consuming processes and traditional IT infrastructure that got in the way of innovation, research, and critical workflows.

Solution: AFRL embraced the entire breadth of the Google Cloud ecosystem — including App Engine, Cloud Build, Cloud Run, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Google Workspace, and more — to level up its tech stack and better serve the needs of the Air Force. Serverless, scalable technologies have helped reduce time-consuming, manual maintenance tasks, enabling its scientists, engineers, and partners to focus on realizing their biggest ideas. Google Cloud’s powerful infrastructure, built-in security features, and the latest AI capabilities enabled AFRL to simplify its operations and speed up research — all while protecting sensitive data and ensuring compliance with strict industry regulations. In addition, Google Workspace gives researchers a central place to work together, regardless of location, providing all the tools they need to collaborate, create, and innovate together from anywhere in the world.

Result: With Google Cloud, AFRL now has all the building blocks it needs to experiment, iterate, and develop technologies at an unprecedented pace — moving from pilots to prototypes to production quickly and scaling up to thousands of users in minutes. With a strong foundation in place, AFRL also has the perfect bedrock for AI innovation, opening up opportunities to explore the latest AI advancements like generative AI tools to further minimize toil and discover even more ground-breaking capabilities that enable the U.S. Air Force to stay at the top of its technology game.

Interview highlights and key takeaways from our interview with Dan Berrigan, Ph.D., Lead, AFRL Worldwide Research Collaboration, Digital Capabilities Directorate:

→ “The current landscape is one we haven’t seen since the Cold War. There is a dramatic shift and urgency to how we as a country stay at the top of our technological capability game. We’re able to explore adopting generative AI tools to kill a lot of toil. We have PhD researchers that have gone to the best schools in this country filling out long-winded pieces of paperwork. These tools are speeding up that element to keep their focus on what the country and what our organization is counting on them to deliver.”

→ “App Engine, and other serverless technologies, gives our researchers a tool to focus on the code and the project and less on the administrativia of keeping the operating system updated. On top of that, the cost of the services are now pooled and less expensive. These tools are enabling the ability to go from five users to 5,000 in a minute. You can pilot, prototype, and turn it on for everybody in our organization in less than a day.”

→ “One of the unique advantages of Google Cloud is [it] did not create its own government cloud — it leveled up its entire commercial cloud to meet compliance regulations for the federal and Department of Defense government. That opens up a world of possibilities for our scientists, engineers, and partners to do things that were not possible on site.”

→ “We utilize Google Workspace [and] within Google Cloud, all of it — from Kubernetes to Compute Engine to Storage to App Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud Workstations, Cloud Build. These tools are fundamentally accelerating our ability to iterate, try a new idea, iterate again, and focus on what matters.”

Google Cloud products used: App Engine, Cloud Build, Cloud Run, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Workstations, Google Workspace