NGA Focuses on AI to Handle Data Surge, Says Director Whitworth
March 10th, 2025
During his keynote address at the SATELLITE conference, Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), outlined the agency’s plans to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to manage the exponential growth of data. The NGA is also prioritizing workforce development to handle the increasing data load.
Whitworth highlighted the need for resources to analyze the massive influx of information. “Structured observations don’t come cheaply, especially when you start generating the type of inferences and number of detections that we do,” he explained. “We move more ones and zeros than any other agency in the United States. A lot of Americans don’t realize that, and accordingly, with the size of the constellation growing and the number of terabytes coming from space over the next eight years, that data collection will go up precipitously.”
AI is a central focus for the NGA. “In the past, we’ve used the A in NGA to go with a theme like acceleration or action. This year we’re talking about a true acceleration of AI,” said Whitworth. He laid out five goals for AI development, including an organizational structure for AI leadership that will enable the agency to take advantage of the technology. “We’re talking about an entity that is not necessarily human, but can be as productive, in some cases, as a human,” he stated. “So while we won’t necessarily have a chief of AI development like you have a chief of human development, we’re getting close to figuring out how to structure that.”
He noted that automated data collection is already underway thanks to AI models implemented last year. “We’re keeping custodies of some things that we didn’t use to keep custody of, and that’s a very powerful thing.”
The NGA also receives valuable pixel data from international partners. “That is something that we at the NGA take very seriously,” said Whitworth. “I don’t talk about those numbers, but trust me, it’s impressive.”
The commercial satellite sector is another crucial source for the NGA. “The coverage that commercial satellites allow is so important right now,” Whitworth said. “I’m talking to a lot of people who represent the commercial sector. I want additional collections and additional commercial pixels. I want analytics with commercial. I want it all.”
Addressing the agency’s decentralized approach, which has been very responsive, Whitworth said, “There are about 9,000 people in the agency now, and about 25 percent of our force is not in any particular headquarters.”
The NGA’s workforce consists of approximately 3 percent military, 55 percent government civilian, and the remainder contractors. “Everyone pulls their weight in their particular areas of expertise, and pound for pound, I’m really proud of the output and the productivity that our team has been able to generate,” he said.
Whitworth also emphasized the need for accreditation and certification for the workforce to effectively utilize AI. He acknowledged some concerns about the impact of AI, but suggested a team approach would be most effective. “I think it’s going to be more of a team approach. Don’t forget, these are some of the best people we have in the world at generating positive identification, generating warning, generating targeting. We need to keep them in a place of constantly training through machine learning, structured observations, and data labeling.”
Whitworth concluded by saying that his primary concern is not external threats, but the responsibility of not missing critical information. “It’s just the responsibility of not missing something. We don’t want to miss some sort of an exploitation that would help us generate positive identification and targeting. And we definitely don’t want to miss any detail that would help us render better charts and better maps.”
