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The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) is tasking a government auditing agency to scrutinize a Defense Department office charged with accelerating the adoption of commercial technology, prompted by concerns over realignment and leadership changes the past few years.
The committee directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine how well the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has been doing in getting commercial technology fielded across the military and wants a briefing on the initial results of the review by Dec. 1, 2023.
The SASC in June approved its version of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and on Tuesday released the bill and accompanying report.
Elements of the GAO’s assessment will include how effective the DIU has been in accelerating the adoption of commercial technology across the department and what impediments there are, its contributions to expanding the national security innovation base, how this base could expand through the geographic distribution of DIU satellite offices, a detailed look at each of the unit’s offices in executing the organization’s mission, what are DIU’s performance goals and how well is it meeting them, and any challenges or obstacles in meeting its goals, the SASC report says.
The DIU was stood up in 2015 to take advantage of rapid advances in commercial technologies by making it easier for commercial companies to work with the DoD. The SASC says it supports DIU’s efforts to work with non-traditional defense companies but says it is “time to take stock” of its work “in order to assess its impact on the innovation ecosystem.”
