The USA Is Building a Digital Intelligence Network Capable of Staying Ahead of China and russia

The annual DoDIIS Worldwide Conference 2026, organized by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, took place in Florida. The forum brought together DIA leadership, representatives from Special Operations Command, Strategic Command, Transportation Command, Space Command, the US Joint Staff, as well as delegations from the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance. The event’s theme – “Next-Generation Military Intelligence: Intelligence Technologies to Enhance Combat Effectiveness” – set the tone for the entire discussion: how to bridge the gap between the moment data are received and the moment a combat decision is made.

Director of DIA, Lieutenant General J. Adams of the Marine Corps, opened the Conference with a presentation on the nature of modern threats. He named China the primary focus of defense planning, adding to the list of threats russia’s buildup of nuclear, submarine, space, and cyber capabilities; the activities of Iran-linked groups in the Middle East; and the actions of narco-terrorist networks in the Western Hemisphere. According to him, modern conflicts are increasingly rarely confined to a single region: deepening cooperation among the USA’s adversaries renders an isolated analysis of regional threats virtually useless. In this environment, the advantage goes to whoever can more quickly gather, verify, and integrate information, using it to identify and strike targets.

Adams outlined six technological challenges that should form the basis of the new architecture: automated verification of data from open sources, full interoperability of intelligence systems, a transition to a “zero-trust” model, shared cloud-based identification and encryption services, the deployment of virtual secure environments for handling classified information, and the modernization of the JWICS network with expanded edge computing capabilities to operate under unstable connectivity conditions. The MARS system has already become a practical embodiment of this approach – it serves as the primary source of data on the armaments and military capabilities of foreign states, while the Common Intelligence Feed integrates it with other resources from the intelligence community into a single operational picture. According to Adams, the use of artificial intelligence has reduced the time it takes analysts to find the information they need from several hours to just a few minutes.

The director of DIA paid special attention to commercially available data: satellite imagery, social media posts, and shipping information. In his view, the automatic verification and cross-referencing of the data will form the foundation of open-source intelligence in the coming decade.