AWS Public Sector Blog
Highlights from the AWS re:Invent 2024 Public Sector Innovation Session
During AWS re:Invent 2024, an Innovation Session presented by Worldwide Public Sector Vice President Dave Levy illustrated how AWS empowers customers to innovate and tackle critical challenges faster and more efficiently using cloud technology and generative artificial intelligence (AI). Take a few minutes to read this post and learn more about the transformative initiatives, inspiring customer stories, and technological developments that help AWS public sector customers improve life on Earth.
Enhancing national security with cloud and AI
AWS has built its infrastructure to meet the most stringent security requirements, including those of the U.S. Government. A recent collaboration between AWS, Anthropic, and Palantir is powering an AI platform that gives defense and intelligence agencies access to Anthropic’s Claude family of large language models (LLMs) on the secure AWS Cloud. This solution lets customers efficiently handle classified data up to the Top Secret level.
Today, Amazon Bedrock is now authorized to operate in the AWS Top Secret Region. This milestone brings the power of frontier models like Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2 to Intelligence Community and Department of Defense customers. With features like Guardrails, Knowledge Bases, and Agents planned for 2025, Amazon Bedrock is reshaping how national security organizations process information and protect national interests.
Salesforce also recently announced a top-secret-authorized government cloud platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) offering for US national security and intelligence agencies. Hosted on the AWS Top Secret cloud, the Salesforce Government Cloud Premium enhances information sharing, provides critical data insights, and accelerates operations while meeting the highest standards of security and compliance.
Dave Levy, left, talks with La’Naia Jones and Scott Fear during their fireside chat.
The Chief Information Officers from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) joined Levy onstage for a fireside chat. La’Naia Jones, the CIA’s CIO, and Scott Fear, the NSA’s CIO, talked about how their agencies are using the cloud, AI, and machine learning (ML) to advance innovation. They also shared insights on how resilience factors into their organizational missions.
Accelerating cancer research and treatment
Cancer is the world’s second-leading cause of death, claiming an estimated 10 million lives each year. AWS is steadfast in the belief that technology can help accelerate the development of new cancer treatments and improve outcomes, and we’re making substantial contributions to the fight against the disease. For example, AWS committed $10 million to help launch the Cancer AI Alliance, a consortium of four National Cancer Institute–designated centers and leading technology companies. By deploying generative AI at scale and using cloud computing, the alliance aims to accelerate innovation in cancer discovery and treatments.
The Innovation Session also highlighted the White House’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, which aims to prevent more than four million cancer deaths by 2047 and improve the experience of people impacted by cancer. Dr. Danielle Carnival, Deputy Assistant to the President for the Cancer Moonshot, shared insights on how the oncology community is collaborating to end cancer as we know it.
Empowering nonprofits and healthcare innovation
AWS takes meaningful steps alongside 85,000 nonprofit customers to address chronic and systemic societal challenges. One way we support nonprofit organizations is through the IMAGINE Grant program. This year, 35 winners are using AWS technologies to do things like design new medications for complex disorders, build vision assistant tools for the blind and impaired, and automate the digitization of handwritten health records in South Sudan.
To address pediatric health challenges, AWS has expanded the AWS IMAGINE Grant program with the Children’s Health Innovation Award. This initiative recognizes nonprofit healthcare visionaries using generative AI and advanced cloud services to accelerate research and better understand rare diseases. The Innovation Session celebrated nine honorees working on projects to accelerate pediatric research, advance maternal-child health, and empower the pediatric workforce and caregivers.
Advancing women’s health research
Recognizing the underrepresentation of women in medical research, AWS announced a commitment of up to $2 million in cloud credits to support the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health’s (ARPA-H) Sprint for Women’s Health. This initiative, funded by AWS Social Responsibility and Impact, will help researchers tackle problems related to brain, cardiovascular, and reproductive health. The goal is to accelerate research and development efforts to improve health outcomes for women.
Driving innovation in government services
The Innovation Session showcased examples of how generative AI is transforming public sector services. Singapore’s Government Technology Agency (GovTech) collaborated with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center to build an end-to-end AI/ML development platform. This solution has improved cost performance for generative AI workloads by 75 percent and fast-tracked AI use cases across 20 government agencies in Singapore.
New frontiers in academic research
Cornell University‘s engagement with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center has led to the development of four innovative projects: an AI-powered Socratic Dialogue classroom chat-based assistant; a veterinary medicine chat-based assistant for canine health; an automated medical archive transcription tool; and a secure, campus-wide sandbox for AI experimentation. These initiatives are part of Cornell’s broader research efforts applying AI, ML, and data science to areas such as sustainable agriculture, urban design, and precision medicine.
Mitigating climate change and natural disasters
The Innovation Session also focused on how advanced technology is helping address climate change and natural disasters. Dr. Rick Spinrad, Administrator of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA), spoke about how the agency is using cloud technology to improve prediction and response to natural disasters, ultimately saving lives and protecting communities.
Igniting innovation across public sector
As we enter what Levy called “a new renaissance” in technology and public service, it’s clear that AWS and its partners are driving innovation across sectors. From enhancing national security to accelerating medical research and improving government services, the cloud and generative AI are empowering organizations to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges.