The Pentagon appointed Gavin Kliger, a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee, as the new chief data officer (CDO) for the Department of Defense (DOD), placing him at the center of the department’s expanding artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives.
As CDO, Kliger’s responsibilities will include overseeing the alignment and execution of AI projects across the department and working with private-sector AI laboratories to support military operations across the DOD – rebranded as the War Department under the Trump administration.
“His oversight will ensure these projects maintain strategic focus, secure critical data access, and deliver transformative capabilities at record speed,” read a March 6 in a post on the DOD’s chief technology officer’s X profile.
Kliger previously served on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s DOGE team. In that role, he oversaw the launch of GenAI.mil, the department’s enterprise AI platform. He also contributed to the Drone Dominance Program, an initiative aimed at rapidly deploying large quantities of American-made one-way attack drones.
In a statement included in the announcement, Kliger described AI as an area of international competition.
“We are in a global competition for military AI dominance, and America must build on its leadership to extend our advantage over adversaries,” Kliger said. “My mission is to integrate the unparalleled innovation of America’s private sector with the Department’s operational expertise to rapidly deliver advanced AI capabilities to our warfighters.”
Before joining DOGE, Kliger served as a senior adviser to the director for technology and delivery at the Office of Personnel Management and spent nearly five years at Databricks, a data and AI company, as a senior software engineer.