Page 16 - FCW, November/December 2021

Building a Data-Driven Government
Smart government:
The convergence of cloud, data and AI
AI thrives on a robust, scalable cloud infrastructure and access to a wide range of datasets
Rob Carey
President, Cloudera Government Solutions
employees or external consultants, they must be able to create a rich and reliable database for AI and machine learning.
Overcoming obstacles to data sharing
The government’s progress on cloud adoption is central to its success with
AI. Because agencies are trying to find answers to new questions, they need more and flexible compute and storage power than they have had in the past. Cloud technology provides a robust platform for those activities that is scalable to meet the demands of machine learning algorithms.
AI is fueled by data, but information sharing has been a challenge in government for quite some time because organizational culture often encourages data owners
to maintain discrete control over their information. Agencies must change that attitude so people can use whatever data they need and are entitled to access to address mission challenges.
Two key steps can help agencies facilitate collaboration on AI projects without compromising the security and integrity
of government data. First, agency heads must accelerate the use of data for the common good. Alternatively, the Office of Management and Budget or the intelligence community, for example, might issue a policy that allows and facilitates information sharing in a way that keeps the security and integrity of the data intact.
Second (and a crucial step), agencies must enact role-based access and robust identity credentials so that only those
IT’S IMPORTANT FOR AGENCIES to understand that in order to accelerate their ability to
deliver on their missions, their strategies
for cloud technology, data management and artificial intelligence are deeply intertwined. By linking all three efforts, the government can leap ahead in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.
The benefits of AI are powerful and only just being realized, but the journey to achieve those benefits is fairly complicated.
Once an agency identifies the problem
it wants to solve, leaders need to gather relevant data for analysis. Unfortunately, government datasets are likely not linked to one another and are often owned by different teams or even other agencies.
Furthermore, AI is a relatively new and complex technology field, and agencies need people who understand how to gather and connect the right information and who can recognize when AI models are working and when they’re not. Whether in-house
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