Ensuring competition in artificial intelligence procurement

(a) Definitions In this section: (1) Advanced computing system The term advanced computing system has the meaning given the term high-end computing in section 4 of the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 (15 U.S.C. 5503). (2) Advanced computing system provider The term advanced computing system provider means any person engaged in the provision, sale, or licensing of any advanced computing system to customers, including individuals and businesses. (3) Artificial intelligence The terms artificial intelligence has the meaning given the term in section 238(g) of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (Public Law 115–232; 10 U.S.C. note prec. 4061). (4) Artificial intelligence application The term artificial intelligence application means any software or hardware application, product, program, device, equipment, or service that utilizes artificial intelligence. (5) Artificial intelligence application provider The term artificial intelligence application provider means any person engaged in the provision, sale, or licensing of artificial intelligence applications to customers, including individuals or businesses. (6) Cloud computing The term cloud computing has the meaning given the term in Special Publication 800–145 of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or any successor document. (7) Cloud provider The term cloud provider means any company engaged in the provision, sale, or licensing of cloud computing to customers, including individuals and businesses. (8) Congressional defense committees The term congressional defense committees has the meaning given the term in section 101(a) of title 10, United States Code. (9) Covered provider The term covered provider means any advanced computing system provider, artificial intelligence application provider, cloud provider, data infrastructure provider, or foundation model provider. (10) Data infrastructure The term data infrastructure means the underlying computer, network, and software systems that enable the collection, storage, processing, and analysis of data, including the ability to record, transmit, transform, categorize, integrate, and otherwise process data generated by digital data systems. (11) Data infrastructure provider The term data infrastructure provider means any person engaged in the provision, sale, or licensing of data infrastructure to customers, including individuals and businesses. (12) Foundation model The term foundation model means an artificial intelligence model that— (A) generally uses self-supervision; (B) contains at least 1,000,000,000 parameters; and (C) is applicable across a wide range of contexts. (13) Foundation model provider The term foundation model provider means any person engaged in the provision, sale, or licensing of foundation models to customers, including individuals and businesses. (14) Multi-vendor technology The term multi-vendor technology means architecture and services that allow for data, model, application, workload, and program portability, usability, and interoperability including for the purpose of avoiding excessive dependence on any individual vendor, across— (A) multiple covered providers; and (B) public, private, and edge computing environments. (b) Advanced computing, artificial intelligence application, cloud, data infrastructure, and foundation model procurement requirements The Secretary of Defense shall, in contracting with covered providers— (1) require a competitive process for each procurement of advanced computing systems, artificial intelligence applications, cloud computing, data infrastructures, or foundation models; (2) ensure that the Government maintains exclusive rights to access and use of all Government data; (3) ensure that the competitive process described in paragraph (1)— (A) prioritizes the appropriate role for the Government with respect to intellectual property, data rights and security, and auditability requirements; (B) requires interoperability based on open standards for all user-facing software, data, and interfaces; (C) includes modular open systems approaches and appropriate work allocation and technical boundaries; (D) mitigates barriers to entry faced by small businesses and nontraditional contractors; (E) prioritizes multi-vendor technology unless doing so is infeasible or presents a substantial danger to national security; and (F) includes protections against vendor lock-in to ensure the Government can, without unreasonable technical, contractual, or financial barriers, move data, models, applications, workloads, and programs between covered providers; and (4) require that covered providers follow the same competitive process described in paragraph (1) in selecting subcontractors involved in providing advanced computing systems, artificial intelligence applications, cloud computing, data infrastructures, or foundation models to the Department of Defense. (c) Data training and use protection The Secretary of Defense shall direct the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to update or promulgate provisions of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to ensure that— (1) Government-furnished data, provided for purposes of development and operation of artificial intelligence products and services to the Department of Defense, is not disclosed or used without proper authorization by the Department of Defense, including that such data cannot be used to train or improve the functionality of commercial products or services offered by a covered provider without express authorization by the Department of Defense; (2) Government-furnished data stored on vendor systems, provided for purposes of development and operation of artificial intelligence products and services to the Department of Defense, is appropriately protected from other data on such systems, and is treated in accordance with Department of Defense data decrees, Modular Open System Architectures (MOSA), and Open Data and Applications Government-owned Interoperable Repositories (Open DAGIR) principles; (3) a covered provider shall certify compliance with paragraphs (1) and (2), and violation of these provisions or false compliance shall be subject to specific penalties, including fines and contract termination; and (4) component acquisition executives may issue exemptions upon— (A) determining that issuing an exemption is necessary for national security; and (B) notifying the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer of the specific provisions exempted, the vendor and program being issued the exemption, and the justification for the exemption. (d) Reporting (1) In general Not later than January 15, 2028, and annually thereafter for four years, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report assessing competition, innovation, barriers to entry, and concentrations of market power or market share in the artificial intelligence space for each period covered by the report. The report shall also include recommendations of appropriate legislative and administrative action. (2) Publication The Secretary of Defense, acting through the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, shall ensure that the report is made available to the public by— (A) posting a publicly releasable version of the report on a website of the Department of Defense; and (B) upon request, transmitting the report by other means, as long as such transmission is at no cost to the Department.