Shyu: DOD ready to release new tech roadmap

The Defense Department will soon release a document outlining its technology priorities, the Pentagon's chief technology officer announced today.

"Finally, we'll actually have a document to kind of shape where we will like to head," Heidi Shyu, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, said at a virtual Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute event. "We're going to get approval from [Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks] this week and then we'll be able to release that."

Shyu said she has been sharing her technology priority areas with the chief technology officers at DOD’s "top seven” prime contractors, asking how they can "solve these tough technical challenges."

Shyu added she's also engaged with smaller companies, sharing critical capability gaps she'd like industry to work on.

Last month, Shyu shared some of her priority areas with reporters, including artificial intelligence and software security.

"Software has to be affordable, modular [and] secure," Shyu told reporters. "So, we need to architect our software and be sure that we’re working on the security aspects. If you buy a piece of equipment, you really want it to be secure. You have to be able to have trust."

Shyu is also creating two new positions to improve DOD's software and technology sustainment: director of processing and software and director of sustainment technologies.

Shyu said today she is still awaiting approval from Hicks to formally establish the new positions.