DARPA deal brings geospatial analytics to the cloud

DARPA and Maxar are collaborating to bring more geospatial analytics to the cloud as technologies and customer desires drive new business models.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded a follow-on contract to Maxar Technologies for continued testing of an unclassified cloud computing environment the company created for analytics functions.

But the Geospatial Cloud Analytics hub is not just a pathfinder program for DARPA and Maxar to enable analysts to apply collected Earth imagery and other data at scale, although that is certainly one main aspect.

GCA also is another example of almost simultaneous changes in the technologies and business models for facilitating the work, plus customer appetite for new tools such as cloud and artificial intelligence to augment what humans do.

“We’ve definitely seen a big shift in the types of questions that you can answer enabled by new technology, we’re deep in the curve in terms of tech acceleration,” said Tony Frazier, Maxar executive vice president for global field operations.

As Frazier pointed out in a phone interview Tuesday, compute storage can be had at low or near-zero cost in a cloud environment and that facilitates collaborative innovation efforts in an open source community. And Maxar had a head start to some extent on making that shift.

“We had already gone through the exercise to move a hundred petabytes of our imagery into the Amazon cloud and enable the ecosystem of developers to build algorithms on top of that,” Frazier told me.

The piece on top of that cloud infrastructure is Maxar’s Geospatial Big Data Platform also known as GBDX, which was inherited through the company’s acquisition of DigitalGlobe two years ago that also brought in the latter’s vast Earth imagery library.

DARPA and Maxar are collaborating on the GCA to “enable analytics and geospatial data at scale” for analysts, Frazier told me, plus help users create algorithms to deploy that data across the platform. Cloud is an enabler for faster experiments and quicker deployments of new offerings at scale once users find something works, he told me.

DARPA first awarded Maxar a $3.7 million contract in September of last year to create the GCA platform for end users in the defense and intelligence community. The GBDX platform is the hub’s foundation and connects users to the company’s vast library of satellite imagery, plus other data from industry partners.

A follow-on contract announced last week is for $4.3 million and covers technical support to those who are building and training machine learning models inside the GCA. DARPA wants its technical area experts to be more able to make sense out of large volumes of geospatial data.

Other companies are part of the effort too. Lockheed Martin is working to create a machine learning model within GCA for identifying oil fracking sites and Culmen International is integrating data sets to detect and predict foreign civil unrest. Both companies are using Maxar imagery and other analytics products to create those offerings.

“Part of our model with this effort has not been just to enable essentially applied (research-and-development) by these performers to build out algorithms against the data sources that we’re capturing to our platform, but also to enable new business models,” Frazier said.

“As the performers come up with novel algorithms to identify unique signals, we’ve been working on new contracting mechanisms to make it easy for customers to acquire that at scale.”

One example he cited is the start of a new Earth observation “SIN” number on the General Services Administration’s Schedule 70 contract for IT acquisitions. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency partnered with GSA to create this “one-stop shop” for agencies to buy geospatial intelligence products and services

While not specifically called out in the release on the award, AI is certainly a key part of the equation for the GCA effort. The White House’s February executive order on prioritizing U.S. leadership in AI, the Defense Department’s AI strategy and the intelligence community’s own agenda are part of that backdrop.

“All of them are focused on how to harness pervasive sensors (and) more volume data on more rapid timelines as a way to make analysts more productive,” Frazier told me. “If you can train machines to be able to narrow the search space, take an image that covers a thousand square kilometers and focus on the few square kilometers that matter… that’s what they’re all trying to address right now.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.