Navy calls for unstructured data algorithms

Unstructured data could hold the key to national defense. The Navy, realizing that quick analysis of its large and varied stores of intelligence data could improve its operations, recently announced its plans to research machine learning algorithms that can turn big data into a tactical advantage.

The Navy's announcement detailed stringent needs for a national defense big data system. The application will need to operate in context. Each mission provides its own context, rules and its own list of important factors that determine what data is important and what is background noise. To be useful, an algorithm must take these differences into account and provide unique, situational results.

The plan also revealed that one thing important to Navy users is an accurate accounting of what data is still missing. The program will ideally be able to identify gaps in intelligence and things that should be known to proceed, intelligently letting personnel know what data they still need to gather.

The U.S. government has recently increased its commitment to big data across many sections and branches. According to Government Computing News, the TechAmerica foundation has assembled a board of 22 big data thinkers to drive the next steps of adoption. The body hopes to find ways that unstructured data can increase American innovation.