David Spirk

Fmr Chief Data Officer, USSOCOM, US DOD; Sr Counselor, Palantir

Commissioner for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

The U.S. cannot assume any advantage in the AI arms race. To keep up with pacing threats including China, Washington must both accelerate the innovation pipeline and build end-user confidence in AI, through robust testing and validation offered by the private sector. Failure to do so would put the U.S. at a severe disadvantage.

Currently serving as senior councilor to Palantir Technologies, Dave Spirk was the Department of Defense’s (DOD) first Chief Data Officer (CDO). In this role he stood up the DoD’s Data Office. With the warfighter as its central focus, this office strengthened data governance and produced clarity to the data-driven workforce across the Department. Furthermore, as the CDO Dave established the DoD’s first Data Strategy and JADC2 Data Implementation Plan. Before becoming CDO Dave served in various intelligence capacities which included serving as the Deputy Director of Intelligence (J2) for Operations and multiple deployments throughout USCENTCOM and USSOUTHCOM.