In June 2023, Dstl and
Google Cloud signed a memorandum of
understanding (MOU) to accelerate the
safe and responsible adoption of artificial intelligence
(AI) across the UK
defence sector. As part of bringing this agreement to life,
Dstl and
Google Cloud delivered a Large Language Model (LLM) hackathon on behalf of the
Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) Defence AI Centre (DAIC).
Taking place at Google Next, this world-leading event helped
better understand the opportunities and risks of LLMs for UK
defence and security.
The hackathon brought together over 200 people to apply Google
Cloud’s cutting-edge generative AI tools to help strengthen UK
defence, security and prosperity. 20 teams, stewarded by Google
Cloud AI engineers,
included Dstlscientists
and representatives from the following:
- Royal Navy
- British Army
- Royal Air Force
- Space Command
-
MOD policy-makers,
ethicists and user researchers
Participants worked for 2 days with Google’s latest AI technologies to develop
innovative, ethical and user-centred prototypes to add to the
growing pipeline of AI innovation ideas created via
the MOU.
Senior HM government leaders and Google’s technology leadership
formed the judging panel. This included GCHQ’s Chief Data
Scientist, Head of the DAIC, and Google Cloud’s Vice
President of Engineering. They assessed the prototypes for 6
awards, including ‘best technical achievement’ and ‘most
illuminating failure’.
A core criteria of every award was alignment to the MOD’s ethical principles for
AI and Google AI Principles.
Winning prototypes ranged from LLM-scanning of cyber security
threats, to LLM-enabled
image analysis, to LLMs for data-driven predictive maintenance.
The ideas explored during the hackathon are now being considered
for further development and testing in order to bring the
prototypes to level of readiness where UK Armed Forces could
safely adopt them.
Andy Bell, Dstl CTO said:
“Dstl and
Google Cloud brought together a hugely diverse range of
participants on behalf of the MOD’s newly established DAIC, to learn, experiment and solve
real-world defence problems with innovative AItechnologies. This hackathon
has demonstrated how creative problem-solving can be harnessed to
address pressing defence challenges, paving the way for
breakthroughs in generative AI for defence applications.”
John Abel, Technical Director for Google Cloud said:
“This hackathon is the first step in delivering on the recent
MOU signed
between Dstl and
Google Cloud, building on clear synergies between the 2
organisations.
“The hackathon served as a powerful example of how collaboration
can drive innovation and ultimately benefit the wider
AI ecosystem. It
also provided valuable educational and training opportunities,
helping to foster the next generation of AI leaders in defence.”
