DOD wants to see 2.5% increase in IT, cyber funding in FY-23

The Defense Department is seeking nearly $58 billion in information technology and cyberspace activities funding in fiscal year 2023 for investments in cloud, artificial intelligence, networks and other capabilities, a recently published breakdown of the request shows.

Within that, the Army’s $16.2 billion IT and cyber budget -- which is nearly on par with the $17.5 billion of defense-wide spending sought in that area -- tops those of the other services, according to the overview document released by the Pentagon May 25.

In comparison, the Navy wants $12.5 billion for its own IT and cyber capabilities, while the Air Force is seeking $11.7 billion, requests that equate roughly to 21.5% and 20%, respectively, of DOD’s budget in those areas.

Pentagon Chief Information Officer John Sherman last month in prepared testimony for a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee's cyber panel noted the military’s $58 billion request reflects an increase of 2.5% in comparison to the enacted FY-22 IT and cyberspace budget.

Overall, the FY-23 IT and cyber portfolio represents 7.5% of the Pentagon’s $773 billion budget request, the overview states.

The vast majority, or three-quarters, of the IT and cyber funding is devoted to business, infrastructure and battlespace support, including areas such as data centers, command and control as well as processes and services. Another 19%, or nearly $11.2 billion, is devoted to cyberspace activities, with dollars going toward advancing cybersecurity, operations, and research and development in network resilience and advanced applications, according to a summary previously released by the DOD comptroller.

Those investments, the summary says, are critical to enabling the military-wide Joint All-Domain Command and Control system, a future “dependent on our ability to move vast quantities of data across networks from the tactical edge to the stateside headquarters.” Specifically, the request earmarks $181 million for the development and integration of JADC2-supported capabilities as well as interagency command and control, per the document.

“In order to achieve this vision, our cyberspace capabilities, operations, and activities must be up to the challenge that our adversaries represent,” the summary continues.

Separately, around 3% of the $58 billion IT and cyber budget is earmarked for AI efforts, while another 3% is devoted to cloud adoption.

When tallying cloud and cloud migration funding together, DOD is looking to spend $2 billion in total cloud resources in FY-23, which the May overview notes would continue the “fundamental department shift towards the adoption of cloud services and the reduction of legacy infrastructure.”

According to Sherman’s testimony last month, DOD logged a 19% increase in cloud spending overall from FY-21 to FY-22. Most of those cloud budgets are provided through commercial service providers rather than in-house, the overview shows. That includes 98% of the total cloud budget for FY-23.

Breaking the FY-23 cloud budget down by service, the overview shows the Air Force’s more-than-$500,000 request for cloud funding tops both the Army’s and Navy’s plans, as well as the defense-wide framework.