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Cost Estimating NewsBrief: June 5, 2026
AI makes it easy to expose holes in Army’s unified network, official says
(Breaking Defense) As the Army modernizes its network, the availability of artificial intelligence capabilities is presenting new opportunities for the network to be compromised, a top Army IT official said today. “The threat now is a different spot. These new AI capabilities [are] lowering the barrier of entry and exposing more of our attack service,” David Markowitz, deputy chief information officer and chief data and analytics officer for the Army, said at the TechNet Cyber conference here today. “We really need to better understand our unified network, rapidly understand where those attacks may be coming in … and be able to ingest the threat and act faster than any adversary.” Read More
Information Technology: Census Bureau Needs to Better Manage Schedule for Modernization Program
(U.S. Government Accountability Office) As the 2030 Census approaches, the Census Bureau is working on a large-scale effort to modernize essential IT data storage and processing systems. It has begun implementing leading practices that can help with this effort—such as managing risks and estimating costs. However, we found that the Census Bureau’s schedule for this project is unreliable. Specifically, it is not comprehensive, well-constructed, credible, or updated regularly. We made recommendations to help ensure that these IT systems are ready for the 2030 Census. Read More
GSA lays out step-by-step guide for agencies to cut, streamline and automate work
(Government Executive) The General Services Administration published a new playbook Wednesday to provide federal agencies and executives tools, strategies and a modern blueprint to automate repetitive tasks and give employees time back to perform mission-critical work. The Elimination, Optimization and Automation playbook, developed by GSA, builds on lessons learned from federal pilots, mature automation programs and the agency’s own extensive internal enterprise efforts to improve operations. While a new product, the playbook is already foundational to the agency’s moonshot goal to save and automate 1 million hours of workload for its staff—a goal it’s more than halfway toward achieving, according to GSA Deputy Administrator Mike Lynch. Read More
Ramping up manufacturing in America?
(McKinsey & Company) Amid deepening geopolitical fragmentation, the United States imports $3 trillion in manufactured goods annually. About 25 percent of these are particular “Achilles’ heels”—due to some combination of criticality to national security, supply concentration, and geopolitical distance from trade partners. About 5 percent of manufacturing imports—overwhelmingly computers and electronic products—have all three dependencies. We introduce a “ramp-up factor” to quantify what it would take for the United States to produce more at home. For those exposed products in the Achilles’ heel, manufacturing would need to double on average to fully meet domestic demand. In some cases the ramp-up factor is much larger, for example, over five for some active pharmaceutical ingredients and over ten for AI servers. Across all products, the number is smaller: 1.3. Read More
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