David Kapusta has been selected to serve as executive vice president of integration of Xcelerate Solutions. In this role, he will guide the company’s merger with VMD Corp and promote a shared strategy and consolidated operations, resources and capabilities, Xcelerate announced from McLean, Virginia on Tuesday.

Pragyansmita Nayak, chief data scientist at Hitachi Vantara Federal, said federal agencies should adopt data fabrics to derive actionable insights from large volumes of data to drive mission outcomes and improve citizen services. “Data fabric architectures integrate disparate data sources into a unified, scalable, and well-governed infrastructure to fuel mission outcomes in an accessible way,” Nayak wrote in an opinion piece published Monday.

SMX and Torchlight AI have partnered to equip the former's operational, service-based commercial offering with the latter's behavior based intelligence platform to boost client mission support. Through the addition of the Torchlight AI platform, the SMX Elevate ISR now offers enhanced delivery of analytics, operational insights and contextualized indicators and warnings in support of customer efforts to identify emerging threats, SMX said Tuesday.

As the federal government embraces artificial intelligence, its leaders are working to build better, more trustworthy and more reliable AI tools and technologies. Digital Science President Stephen Leicht told Executive Mosaic in a new video interview that successful AI systems rely upon three key components: data, technology and people.

Executive Mosaic is pleased to announce the selection of Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante to the 2024 class of the Wash100 Awards. As the Department of Defense's acquisition chief, LaPlante has worked to make sure that the U.S. military possesses the capabilities it needs to protect national security interests and that the U.S. defense industry is in a position to provide them. For these efforts, LaPlante is being honored with the Wash100 award this year, which marks his third straight win and third overall.

The Popular Vote Competition of the 2024 Wash100 Award runs through April 30, 2024. Click here to vote for William LaPlante as one of your favorite GovCon industry leaders!

Varda Space Industries has raised $90 million in a series B funding led by Caffeinated Capital and will use the capital to build its infrastructure that supports pharmaceutical manufacturing in space. The company said Friday the investment follows the launch and reentry of its W-1 hypersonic reentry capsule to demonstrate the production of pharmaceuticals and other materials in microgravity.

Accenture Federal Services and Google Public Sector have unveiled a new center of excellence that seeks to help federal agencies improve citizen experience while managing sensitive and classified workloads using data management platforms and generative artificial intelligence technologies. The Data and AI Center of Excellence will provide agency clients with access to Google Cloud's AI-based code generation tools, Vertex AI platform, language models, specialized data and AI experts and AI-optimized infrastructure, the companies said in a joint release published Thursday.

Over the last three decades, Gary Hix has watched government contracting evolve dramatically, while still retaining its core principles. He’s no passive observer though: he’s played an active role at companies like Sallie Mae, Novus Consulting Group and IBM. He's currently chief technology officer at the federal arm of Hitachi Vantara.

ExecutiveBiz had the chance to talk to Hix and get his perspective on the current state of federal cloud migration, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and more.

A new report by Deloitte’s Center for Government Insights has identified eight trends that could enable a tenfold improvement in government outcomes and one is that advances in artificial intelligence, including generative AI, could result in increased productivity in the public sector. The Government Trends 2024 report suggested that governments should establish a foundation of data, cloud, processes and other digital capabilities before testing and scaling AI applications.

James Parys, vice president of growth and strategy at Ultra Intelligence & Communications, sat down with Executive Mosaic to talk about the importance of CJADC2, the role artificial intelligence and machine learning can play in these efforts and how these technologies and initiatives will transform operations at the tactical edge.

Executive Mosaic is honored to name Shubhi Mishra, founder and CEO of Raft, a 2024 Wash100 Award recipient in recognition of her continued dedication to drive digital transformation and innovation across the government contracting sector. This marks her first time receiving the highly coveted award in the GovCon space, joining the annual list of the 100 most influential and impactful leaders who have contributed to the growth of the federal government marketplace.

Vote for Shubhi Mishra as your favorite GovCon leader as part of the 2024 Wash100 popular vote competition! Voting closes on April 30, so visit Wash100.com to cast your ten votes today.

Cloud storage company Box has been selected by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to supply a cloud-based content management platform to the Defender Services Office to enable DSO to securely share content with U.S. district courts, federal public defenders and investigators. The company said Thursday DSO works to support Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys and federal public defender organizations representing indigent clients accused of federal crimes.