The cloud-based system the Air Force is co-developing with Canada to enable instantaneous combat data-sharing is just about ready for prime time, alth

North American Airspace Defense Getting Cloud-Based Backbone Next Month

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2023-09-15 19:00:01

The cloud-based system the Air Force is co-developing with Canada to enable instantaneous combat data-sharing is just about ready for prime time, although the looming threat of a budget gap may slow its global deployment.

Cloud-based command-and-control (CBC2), a pillar of the service's Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), will hit initial operating capability roughly on schedule next month, Brig. Gen. Luke Cropsey, integrating program officer for Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management, told The War Zone and other outlets this week at the Air, Space, and Cyber conference near Washington, D.C. It's headed to three unspecified base locations within the first half of 2024, Cropsey said, with others to follow at "more scale" as what's anticipated to be a five-year rollout plan gets underway.

For the Air Force, this will be the proving time for a system that government auditors critiqued earlier this year as insufficiently well-defined, a common criticism of ABMS as a whole, and the Defense Department-wide Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept it supports. But while JADC2 has most of its major implementation milestones well ahead of it, Cropsey emphasized the immediacy of the digital infrastructure rollout.