EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon memo lays out push for Advana to become formal program of record
The memo was signed on March 13 by Steven Morani, the acting assistant secretary of defense for sustainment.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering turning the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s (CDAO) Advana platform into a formal program of record, according to an internal memo viewed by Breaking Defense.
The memo was signed on March 13 by Steven Morani, the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S). It calls for the CDAO Component Acquisition Executive (CAE) to provide his office drafts of a capability needs statement, program cost estimate, a program roadmap and “other supporting documentation” within 30 days after the memo was signed to help determine if Advana should become a program of record.
Additionally, within 60 days of signing the memo, the A&S team must submit “courses of action for my approval regarding pausing the issuance of any solicitation covering Advana efforts sponsored or executed by the CDAO CAE, acquisition pathway(s), program management appointment and a transition agency for Advana,” Morani wrote.
Advana, the Defense Department’s prized data analytics platform, is a massive enterprise data environment that provides the armed services, officials and partners with analytics and data-driven tools from over 400 department business systems.
In 2021, the DoD awarded the first contract related to Advana to Booz Allen Hamilton for $647 million, but the program’s future has felt precarious over the last calendar year.
In June 2024, the Pentagon paused the development of Advana, citing “infrastructure” changes needed to be made before additional features could be added, DefenseOne reported. A month later, the CDAO announced it would be holding a recompete for Advana followed by announcing a 10-year multi-vendor solicitation worth up to $15 billion in September, Breaking Defense reported. And following President Donald Trump taking office two months ago, Alex O’Toole, the program officer for Advana, left his role, DefenseScoop reported.
According to his LinkedIn page, O’Toole is now employed at Databricks in a senior management position. The Pentagon declined to comment on who has replaced him. The Pentagon also did not respond to a request for comment by press time confirming that the CDAO received the memo and is following through with the required actions laid out by Morani.
Sydney Freedberg contributed to this report.
