Technologies in the army. How does Microsoft cooperate with the military?
[Music] my guest is mr angus mcgregor miller a general manager and defense and intelligence at microsoft and angus also was commissioned into the british army and he was part of the nato's perhaps operations um in macedonia and kosovo and after retiring from the british army and was concentrated on the item market it is right that's right yes uh good morning i'm sitting here in a heidelberg in germany so we're still a very much in in the morning today and i thank you for the opportunity to uh to chat with you i'm glad that we can see each other via teams so in this conversation we will be talking about technology and army and solutions for special forces and at the beginning i would like to ask about one thing microsoft cooperates with a british polish and american army also and for the military to cooperate with a commercial company and there is undoubtedly a need for trust uh so sir what do you think uh why and the military decided to cooperate with you uh with microsoft uh with business so i think you know i would take the opportunity to say it's not just those three countries so whether it's nato or european union countries whether it's in the indo-pacific region uh whether it's a latin america um we're operating around the world and we're working working in all aspects of government so you talked about the ministry of defense but it might be the ministry of interior it might be other government um agencies that of course all play a part to national security and defending the national interest um secondly a couple of decades ago you were you're probably right to to argue that defense was at the cutting edge of technology so something was being built that was really cool and new and technologically brilliant then generally organizations like darpa were behind it and it was coming out to the military and then making its way into the rest of the commercial business that has turned around now and so the paradigm that we now have is that within commercial business is where all the technology technological innovation or the vast majority of technological innovation is taking place and therefore governments and ministries ministers of defense see the need in order to access that innovation to work with commercial companies and then clearly they do it in a very particular way because ministries are different governments are different we understand that and over the 40 years that microsoft has been operating we've learned how to operate in this space uh what kind of specific solutions and implementation you can say something more about this and about uh examples of these uh technologies well you mentioned at the beginning of the call along the re the um the fact that we were able to have this discussion using a technology that allows for a a virtual interaction that we can see one another uh that we can read each other's a accused that we're able to uh develop a rapport this modern workplace this virtualization was for many people including ministries of defense including governments not something that they were comfortable with and the last 18 months we've seen that explode um minister of defense around the world i would reference the united states or australia directly um who have implemented this sort of software um you have the national health service in the uh united kingdom they're doing the uh the same thing but it might sound a little are arrogant but there's not an area of of the military i.t spectrum that i don't think we're operating in and that stretches all the way from space um intelligence logistics personnel veteran affairs health care we have customers um in the uh middle east and africa who are using our retail solution in order to run the military stores um on base um we have simulation we have virtualization uh we have data centers so really it doesn't matter where you're coming uh coming at it with our partners and with our platforms we're operating um across the board today um what do you think what this kind of principles and it's microsoft to work with clients from the military sector and with army well we've taken um a decision that we will work with democratically elected governments around the world yep that's that's sort of the uh the bottom line and we won't withhold a technology clearly as an american company we operate within a series of of regulations uh whether it's export control or whether it's the international trade in arms regulations as all uh manufacturers all commercial entities uh do in this space so we work within that framework if you will that's a um the the legal framework or the principles that are in place clearly we ourselves set a very high standard as to um the responsible use of it whether it is um artificial intelligence or whether it's machine learning so that they're not used for you know something that we're not comfortable uh comfortable with i don't think anyone has a problem with the platform being used um by police agencies around the world to go after um a a child a a sorry pedophile child pornography that's a good use of of those technologies so we we we take our responsibility to be serious seriously and then within the uh defense itself what we tend to do is the principle is a shared vision of an outcome um coming in and selling i t for the sake of i.t or for the sake of technology because it's the shiny new toy generally doesn't work very well so it may not be a principle but it's a um it's recognized that if we come in as partners and we're there for not just the short term but for the long term so the customers we're working with we've been working with for decades now then that is recognized and then finally um although it's not a principle for um a ministries of defense is very much a principle for government it is no good if we come in and we are doing business and that's it we have to do business locally we might be a global company but we have to operate locally so that means we have our colleagues that are serving uh in this case the the polish market directly but we also have partners that are there now because we want to ensure that the local companies benefit as well and in defense space that means the manufacturers that means the integrators are operating with us and in conjunction with us those are some principles i think that that seemed to make sense to me um what is the role of the technology companies uh not just microsoft but also another uh generally in today's technology and gopi girl politician situation uh in the military sector um and so you think is the end of the time of uh military self-sufficiency for the government for the states so if i can turn your your question around a uh um a a lot then i would actually say you know my service was in the 1980s 1990s uh um a uh when i said we were not military self-sufficient then i don't think any military has been self-sufficient um a uh for a long long time even if you look at the us military you might argue that they are self-sufficient they aren't their ford operating bases are in other national boundaries and they have um agreements with those countries to have those a bases there and there is a geopolitical angle to that so the idea of self-sufficiency doesn't doesn't make sense to me however i would agree with you that i t information technology is critical to anything we do now um if i go back to the comment i made about the the police we are talking about zettabytes of information it is taking one person one year to go through a single case file of of data and that might be the same for an intelligence um officer um doing his uh a job uh in in the j2 space if you apply technology to it you can take that one man year and create one day because that's how good it is you don't remove the person from the decision cycle all you're doing is providing them not the zettabyte of information but the 10 20 30 things that they need to concentrate on so self-sufficiency i i don't agree was ever there we always rely on allies and partners and we are one of those partners in the commercial entity and it is the only way that we can manage the overwhelming amount of data that we are creating either by weapon platforms or or by gathering information i would like to ask about one contract microsoft wins us army contract for augmented reality headsets and i think it's all for next 10 years and so could you say something more about this well clearly there's an element of a commercial in confidence around the contract so what i'm going to talk about is is what is open um and reported within the press but i'll give you my observation as well because i've talked about partnership and the ivass contract you're talking about is a clear um a uh um example of that of that partnership so you might ask um or you might question why is microsoft in this market microsoft is not um a a purveyor of military equipment such as infrared sights um a uh um that they're replacing what we do have though is we have a very strong simulation um a very strong virtual reality um arm and we were able to partner with the department of defense in this case and show them those those qualities those those uh factors and they said we like this now that's all very well liking it but how do you take it from a proof of concept into winning a contract and then delivering it how you do that is you iterate directly with the end users not with the it department not with the financial department not the legal department they have to be involved because they all have a place uh um in the the wide contract the wider contract but you have to do it with the end user so microsoft embedded itself um with the uh um soldiers on the training exercises learned from them built something came back corrected it brought it back corrected six seven eight iterations and we're doing that before there is an award of the contract we're partnering before um a other contract award in order to get the best possible um a result and then we went in um a with uh similar uh companies or with uh other companies providing this sort of similar software similar hardware we went in as a partnership um and a we won now the proof of the pudding is delivering that now so we have won the contract um we now have to deliver it and we have to then serve that contract over the next few years but yeah i love the ivass award and thank you for bringing it up because it shows this clear partnership with the end users and the focus on the mission outcome not just on technology for technology's sake and poland is also investing in technologies for the military and microsoft is building a data center in poland and what do you think what is european and what does it mean for the ministry of national defense and especially for the country's defense well if i've argued that it is critical for minister of defense for government agencies in the future then of course i believe that building a data center in poland is a critical part of of that national identity of the uh of the the national security plan if you're asking me um a what should they be doing with it um a then i've got a couple of ideas um like the australian administrative defence are doing they could be lifting their sap um that is living on an on-premise database somewhere and placing that into the cloud other countries around the world have no issue with doing that whatsoever it's you know standard practice it is below the classification um a level that allows you to be able to uh to do it and that's going to improve your readiness it's going to improve the logistics the personal that might seem like relatively boring um a stuff but it's probably 80 percent of the um of the government work and then there's probably some things that they can do that are um innovative um a that are new um one of the uh um a uh things that that we are finding gains traction is around open source intelligence gathering so i came out of the j2 world so i'm comfortable in saying that around 80 of the intelligence work is done on open source intelligence there's a sector of the intelligence gathering that is very much a high security but a lot of it is open source and that open source intelligence gathering the the aggregation of that data can all be done um in the cloud day today in fact most of that information is out there in in various clouds so those are sort of areas that you can innovate using that data center um in in poland when it comes online um when i talked with somebody from from army um all the time i heard that the biggest problem is lack of people in army and technology is one thing but people is another thing and what do you think what kind of skills should have a soldier in the field of itis world in today's world i i love the a concept that um the singapore armed forces were talking about a few years um they actually wanted to link their recruits now it's slightly different military they still have um a recruitment so every 18 year old goes in and does national service and so they know they're going to join the military it's slightly different but they wanted to access the 16 year old 17 year old recruits and if they were playing games whether it was a tank game or a fighter aircraft game they wanted the recruits to be able to import their gaming profiles into the recruitment process so that they could see how the recruits would fail either in an f-16 jet or in a leopard tank and then actually send them to the right agency the right um arm along the way that's maybe a radical um a way of looking at it but i think the if i just look at my own children i'm 18 and uh 20 years old um they are quite surprised when they arrive in university or they go to work and they're confronted with i.t that they
don't recognize because it's 10 20 years old so i think the the the new recruits coming in um are able to help us here they are uh um a diligent they understand this technology they're quick to learn it so the emphasis is on us um as a suppliers um the ministries of defense as the uh um as the employers to provide that technology so it's seamless they use it in private life they use it as a teenager they use it as a young soldier it's it's normal the other thing is and i learned to say very early on in the british military you train as you fight so there's no point in having a really good system but then only using it when you have to so i would always encourage a customer to be using that software all of the time because it then becomes second nature which sort of means that the processes have got to be um a looked at this is not just about i.t this is about culture so if you've got young people coming in and they are a culture that accept um i.t then we have to provide it to them but that requires us to look at the processes that we've had in place for 50 20 30 years um we've always done it because it's that way we don't have to always do it that way so we have to look at that process and then on that training there's another part to it which is sort of at the other end of the scale as you have people coming out of the military and people leave for all sorts of reasons i left halfway through my career in order to start a career outside of the military there are others my brother went right the way through to the end of his career and retired and has gone straight into retirement and so you know there are lots of people coming out what do you do with those people they are generally very well trained they are generally um a cognizant of the the military space and do we want to lose them or do we want to regain them and keep them in that that military um area so in the u.s we have something called the systems and software academy um we are it's a 17-week course it's all online um we train people that have never touched a computer to be a consultant um in in computing and then they can go out they don't all come to microsoft they they go to many many companies um and they serve the military as a as commercial um individuals some of them might go back into the military as a civilian to um operate as a civil servant that's being rolled out into australia we have the first 140 applicants in in australia so we take very seriously this need to train people and as i said at the beginning of the interview um if we're working with the government it's no good coming in and selling a piece of software and then walking away we're there for the long term we have to ensure that people can use that software as well i heard that all the time is fight between state and between business about future soldiers and we think that will there always be a military competition between the state and the business about people and that they are the best in its worth um i'd be very disappointed if it was a competition we're better than your than you are um certainly both parties or all the parties have their speciality i would be very disappointed for example if you have a military that says i'm going to run this it system because i know how to run it systems they do but it's not their core job i would argue their core job is to provide a service to the service arms in order to do their mission yeah so they can concentrate on that let somebody else run that core business for them because there is a a value in that scale um it might be around security it might be around cost it might be around those uh individuals who are trained to uh to manage it so as with everything it's a balance yeah um no one person is is right here um and we just have to find that and we can only find it when we get together when we're talking about it when we're identifying those opportunities um how to combine the sovereignty of the country and use new technologies how to help implement cyber strategies for state and what kind of role is here for the technologies companies so again it sort of goes back to this say uh um idea of self-sufficiency um yes a nation is suffering i've been in a nato um headquarters when a very large ministry of defense turned around and said no i'm not going to do that that crosses my political red line um a and you know i'm going to disobey that order so you know that happens and that's a sovereign decision but let's not confuse sovereign decisions and the need to to the the national interest with the opportunity um offered by in my case i t at scale and and data centers no one is going to be self-sufficient nobody is going to operate on their own so whether it is um as a european defense agency or whether it's as a um a a a five eyes um a coalition or whether it's a nato coalition or a un coalition we're going to work together yeah and so what we ensure with our data centers is that either from a regulatory point of view european regulatory view personal data doesn't leave europe which is very important you could say that sovereign or whether it's about ensuring that data that i have that i want to keep in my boundary is boxed but that's a technological box that you have control over it's not necessarily going to be a within that data center in in the country those are how we address those those nationality or those sovereign and indeed those cyber security issues uh and i have last questions um what do you think uh what is the most important technology for our next decades for next year's uh for army oh dear um there are so many to think of um uh i've talked about data um a a a great deal so i should talk about something else but honestly i'm going to go back to data very boring i i you know i could talk about simulation i could talk about space i could talk about a uh um a the erps no i'm going to go back today it all comes back to data all of those whether it's a simulation um a virtual a reality that you're running for training whether it's command and control systems uh whether it's your erp system they're all generating data and it's how you support and manage that data control that data so that you get the insights out of the data that you want and that you can action um a uh um on so i think how you manage that in a sensible way is is what's gonna face is gonna be the major issue that we have to uh manage over the next five to ten years okay thank you so much for the conversation it was honor for me and i hope that we will see again soon it's a have a nice day niggler thank you very much and i wish everyone watching a good day as well and uh stay safe bye now bye [Music] you
2021-10-22 21:50
