Indo-Pacific Command to take on bigger role in DOD’s ‘global information dominance’ experiments

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is poised to take on a more significant role in future Defense Department Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), which are being designed to prove out emerging technologies needed to enable the military’s vision for connecting assets spanning all conflict domains via one secure network.

Broadly, the latest and forthcoming GIDE projects are intended to help test, optimize and integrate data systems with artificial intelligence that can support the realization of the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) construct. Recently relaunched by the Pentagon’s nascent Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO), the sixth iteration of GIDE kicked off in early June and and will unfold through July 26. 

Experimentation teams made up of military and civilian personnel from all service branches and multiple combatant commands are involved.

In response to questions from DefenseScoop earlier this month, Pentagon Spokesperson Eric Pahon confirmed in an emailed statement that Indo-Pacific Command “is an active participant” in GIDE 6. That combatant command is responsible for defending and promoting U.S. interests in the Pacific Ocean and Asia as tensions between America and China intensify.

“USINDOPACOM is leveraging its datasets and artificial intelligence to deter, and if necessary, defeat adversaries in the Indo-Pacific,” Pahon said.

On a recent trip to Hawaii, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks was briefed by command officials regarding how their team is contributing to GIDE. Pahon noted that the command’s focus for that discussion “was to demonstrate the value of data, and illuminate the process of data dissemination.”

“USINDOPACOM plans to take more of a sponsorship role in these [GIDE] exercises to shape the initial delivery of JADC2,” Pahon confirmed. 

Though he didn’t provide any further information about how the command’s responsibility for future experiments might shift or expand at the time, Pahon said the organization is working closely with the CDAO “to ensure the infrastructure is in place to provide high quality and large volumes of data needed to improve decision-making.”

At this point details remain sparse — but Margie Palmieri, the Pentagon’s deputy chief digital and AI officer, also hinted at how Indo-Pacific Command may play more of a role in future GIDE wargames. During an event hosted by the RAND Corp. last week, DefenseScoop asked her what the next realistic operational military scenarios are that GIDE exercises 7 and 8 will be aimed at. 

“Indo-Pacom. Indo-Pacom. Indo-Pacom,” Palmieri said. “I mean, you can imagine where that command focuses.”