DARPA calls for advanced big data ideas

Military cloud
DARPA looks for military uses of big data

The US military research agency DARPA has decided that cloud technology will be the next biggest thing to hit since the bunker-busting bomb.

According to V3, DARPA director Arati Prabhakar told a briefing on emerging threats with the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Intelligence that it is looking to come up with some advanced big data ideas.

She said that DARPA is creating a new set of cyber security capabilities that will ensure that networked information is trustworthy.

This is important for businesses because DARPA creates complex and sophisticated technologies for military departments, which are eventually rolled out to the public.

Prabhakar said that the tools DARPA are looking for will help it get a handle on the explosion of data. Instead of drowning in that data, it can actually get deep insights out of all of that information out there, she said.

Inflexible systems

The US's existing methods are not robust enough and the classic approach to complex military systems are so costly and inflexible that they are not going to serve the country's needs for the next generation, she said.

The data tools DARPA is developing will be used by intelligence agencies, such as the NSA, to improve the efficiency of mass-surveillance operations such as PRISM when sifting through data. But they also could be used to co-ordinate information from the battlefield from long distances away.

  • Now read about savings in the Cloud