In national security, seamless connectivity is key to maintaining competitive advantage. But as AI matures and cyber threats proliferate, underlying network supports are growing increasingly strained and complex.
“The evolution of technology does not match the infrastructure,” said Tang Pham, vice president of the national security group at AT&T. To meet today’s mission-critical requirements and ensure future readiness, agencies need to invest in infrastructure modernization. By breaking down silos and shifting from bespoke requirements to shared commercial capabilities, agencies can unlock new levels of collaboration and interoperability.
The bandwidth bottleneck
As long as you don’t need a lot of water, the straw continues to work fine. But the true vulnerability of the status quo becomes apparent when agencies need to respond to a crisis, whether a cyber attack or a natural disaster. In these circumstances, “you need to actually get more water, but you’re still sipping it from a straw,” he said.
Relying on legacy infrastructure to support modern intelligence requirements creates dangerous operational risks. Moreover, outdated communication frameworks lack the resilience to adequately address the massive and ever- increasing volume of cybersecurity threats. As a result, “adversaries already have access to, or continually try to get access to, some of the most sensitive networks,” Pham said.
This swiftly evolving landscape has profound implications for national security. Before agencies can rise to these challenges and stay ahead of adversaries, they will need to fundamentally reassess their network architecture and prioritize resilience, redundancy and scalability.
This content is made possible by our sponsor AT&T; it is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Defense One's editorial staff.
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