Top announcements and highlights from the 2023 AWS Summit Washington, DC keynote

From data and collaboration, to security and resilience, to advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)—Max Peterson, vice president of worldwide public sector at Amazon Web Services (AWS), shared announcements, news, and stories of how public sector customers are using cloud technology to make the world a better place at the AWS Summit Washington, DC keynote on June 7. The keynote set the tone for the two-day event that brought together the public sector cloud community. Max was joined onstage by two special guests—Nand Mulchandani, chief technology officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Ed Lein, Ph.D., senior investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science—who discussed how they’re using AWS to create cutting-edge innovations that are helping them deliver on their missions and solve global challenges.

Read on to learn what you missed in the AWS Summit Washington, DC keynote address:

New AWS Snowblade available for eligible defense customers to provide ruggedized edge services

AWS Snowblade is now available for customers under the U.S Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract. AWS Snowblade is designed to provide AWS compute, storage, and other hybrid services in remote locations, including Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) environments for the DoD. AWS Snowblade meets US Military Ruggedization Standards, enabling defense customers to run their operations and manage demanding workloads in edge locations that can be subject to extreme operating conditions. Learn more about AWS Snowblade.

AWS SimSpace Weaver now available in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions

AWS recently launched AWS SimSpace Weaver, which is a fully managed service that customers can use to build, operate, and scale large spatial simulations that have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of entities interacting in real-time in complex two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) environments. Now, SimSpace Weaver is available in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, US-East and US-West, allowing customers with sensitive data or regulated workloads in the cloud to meet U.S. federal, state, or local government security and compliance requirements. Government customers can run simulation scenarios for immersive training, environmental hazard preparedness, and logistics planning, among other scenarios.

New AI and ML Experience-Based Acceleration offering to support customers in advancing their generative AI capabilities

To help public sector organizations advance their generative AI capabilities, AWS created an AI and ML Experience-Based Acceleration (EBA) offering that provides the opportunity for customers to work closely with the AWS team over an 8-12 week period. During this period, our team coordinates with participants to implement best practices and solve problems in an interactive setting, helping build models for things like creating more engaging conversational citizen experiences or assisting students with finding resources for their course work more easily. This allows our customers to get the full support needed to deliver results faster and more efficiently.

New Amazon HealthLake capabilities to support healthcare customers

AWS launched three new Amazon HealthLake capabilities to help customers meet patient access rules from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Launching in preview, Amazon HealthLake now supports Substitutable Medical Applications,Reusable Technologies on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (SMART on FHIR), patient access APIs, and FHIR bulk data access APIs. Combined, these capabilities make it simpler for customers to authorize users and applications to exchange health data simply and securely. Learn more about these new capabilities.

Startups selected for the Climate Change Intensive Fellowship in Latin America and the Caribbean

AWS is collaborating with Halcyon, a nonprofit supporting impact-driven startups, on a new Climate Change Intensive Fellowship in Latin America and the Caribbean. AWS is providing $25,000 USD in credit to each startup in the program to help them address issues around climate change and health equity more quickly through the use of cloud technologies. Learn more about the fellowship and the selected startups.

New AWS Skills to Job Tech Alliance to create more pathways to cloud careers

AWS is bringing together a coalition of government, education, Fortune 500 leaders, and other employers as part of our AWS Skills to Job Tech Alliance to help modernize higher education curricula and create more pathways to cloud careers globally. Efforts will focus on developing capstone projects, providing internships and apprenticeships, and creating hiring events for participating organizations. The Tech Alliance will be available to 78 education institutions that collectively serve more than 380,000 learners across five regions including Illinois, New York, and Washington in the U.S., as well as Spain and Egypt – with plans to scale to additional regions around the world soon. Learn more about the AWS Skills to Job Tech Alliance. Learn more about the Tech Alliance.

Mapping the human brain in the cloud to cure Alzheimer’s and more: Special guest Ed Lein, PhD

On the keynote stage, senior investigator for the Allen Institute for Brain Science, Ed Lein, PhD, discussed a new collaboration between the Allen Institute for Brain Science and AWS: the Transformative Unifying Brain Knowledge Platform (BKP). The Allen Institute for Brain Science is building the BKP on AWS to unify the world’s neuroscience information and host brain reference data and a knowledge framework to help scientists understand brain structure and function and accelerate the study of brain diseases. They use a breadth of AWS services to store data, build and run applications, turn complex data into actionable insights with AI and ML, and are even evaluating using Amazon Bedrock to support generative AI applications in the BKP.

Pictured: Ed Lein, Ph.D., senior investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science.

Using this data, the Allen Institute for Brain Science has been studying brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, to map cell activity across the spectrum of the disease to present new targets for developing therapeutic solutions. “We are extremely enthusiastic about this collaboration and thankful for AWS to bring the technology solutions to this grand challenge to help advance neuroscience and treatment of brain diseases,” said Lein.

Embracing innovative technology to support national security: Special guest Nand Mulchandani

As the nation’s first line of defense, the CIA uses the power of information to keep citizens safe. To serve this mission, the CIA has a 75-year history of being at the cutting edge of technology. During the AWS Summit Washington, DC keynote address, Nand Mulchandani, chief technology officer of the CIA, shared with attendees the importance of embracing innovation to maintain mission success.

Pictured: Nand Mulchandani, chief technology officer of the CIA.

Mulchandani shared how the CIA recognized the power of cloud and became one of the earliest adopters of cloud technology – even if it meant taking on an initial level of risk. “Moving to the cloud was not an easy transition—but we’re proud that the work has paid off,” said Mulchandani. Ultimately, supporting the security of the nation and striving to make the world a better place requires teamwork across public and private sector organizations. “Let’s all work together to make a better world,” Mulchandani said.

Learn more about AWS for the public sector.

Subscribe to the AWS Public Sector Blog newsletter to get the latest in AWS tools, solutions, and innovations from the public sector delivered to your inbox, or contact us.

Please take a few minutes to share insights regarding your experience with the AWS Public Sector Blog in this survey, and we’ll use feedback from the survey to create more content aligned with the preferences of our readers.