US Cyber Command’s Elite Cyber Unit Hosts New AI Task Force

The U.S. Cyber Command has established an artificial intelligence task force within its elite cyber unit to protect the nation from major digital threats, Fedscoop reported. The Cyber National Mission Force, a sub-unified command under Cyber Command, consists of 39 joint teams with some of the Department of Defense's top cyber operators. 

These teams are organized into task forces focused on specific threat actors, with the primary mission of safeguarding the nation from digital threats. The AI Task Force was established in response to a mandate from the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill. 

This legislation directed Cyber Command, along with the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, the Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the NSA Director, and the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, to collaboratively create a five-year strategy and implementation plan. 

This plan aims to rapidly adopt and integrate AI systems, applications, supporting data, and data management processes for cyber operations.

“We created an AI Task Force and what the decision that we made is we put it inside of our largest operational organization. It’s inside the Cyber National Mission Force. [Commander] Maj. Gen. Lorna Mahlock has that team of expertise as a tool that when she’s got a hard problem, she can use that task force as one of the solutions,” Gen. Timothy Haugh, commander of Cybercom and director of the National Security Agency, said at a dinner hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.