On March 5-7, 2024, the Global and National Security Institute (GNSI) at the University of South Florida (USF) hosted GNSI Tampa Summit 3 featuring the 9th Great Power Competition Conference (GPC9). These ongoing GPC conferences bring together some of the best and brightest strategic thinkers, leaders, subject matter experts from around the globe to provide policymakers and thought leaders a broader understanding of the various challenges facing the United States and the modern great power competition.
GNSI Tampa Summit 3 focused on the application and future of artificial intelligence
and large language models in the modern era of strategic competition. Over three days,
prominent keynote speakers, research presentations, dynamic panels, and engaging discussions
highlighted ideas and perspectives were highlighted through prominent keynote speakers,
research presentations, dynamic panels and engaging discussions.
You can watch all of the conference videos at the GNSI Tampa Summit 3 Playlist on our YouTube Channel.
Direct links to specific videos are noted below.
Day 1 (March 5, 2024)
The conference host, Dr. Adib Farhadi, Associate Professor and Faculty Director of Executive Education at USF, welcomed
a large audience in the Marshall Center’s Royal Palm Ballroom and virtual attendees.
Watch Farhadi's remarks.
General (Ret) Frank McKenzie, Executive Director of GNSI and former Commander of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM)
started the days discussion with brief remarks on how GNSI Tampa Summit aims to “bring
experts, thought leaders from around the world and from various disciplines to discuss
difficult problems and to come up with actionable, usable solutions that are applicable
at the local, at the state, federal, international level.” Watch McKenzie’s full remarks here. 
Following General Mckenzie’s welcoming remarks, local Florida Congresswoman Laurel Lee spoke of the importance of balancing national security needs and AI innovation in a short, recorded video. Watch Lee’s full remarks here
Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of USCENTCOM delivered the morning keynote, providing examples
on how the armed services are applying artificial intelligence in their operations
and enhancing command decisions. “Our operations cover a large geographic space and
we collect a massive amount of data, everything from imagery to text reports to full
motion video and everything in between. That data has huge potential, but unless we
have a way to rapidly sift through it to find important information that potential
will remain untapped. And that's where I think AI has an important role to play, particularly
for us and with a very strong military application.” Watch Cooper’s full remarks here
Continuing the theme of an ever-changing national security landscape, Panel 1 focused on How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming National Security.
The panel featured:
Carolyne Davidson, (Moderator) Associate Dean of Administration and Outreach, National Defense University
Damon L. Woodard, PhD Director of the Florida Institute for National Security
Lieutenant General (ret) John Shanahan, Adjunct Senior Fellow, CNAS
Schuyler Moore, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Central Command
Watch the complete panel here.
The morning session for Day 1 concluded with recorded remarks from the Deputy Secretary
of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, PhD.
Watch Hick’s full remarks here
* * * *
The afternoon session kicked off with an engaging discussion between Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen and General (Ret) Frank McKenzie about the intersection of cybersecurity and AI and how decision makers need to be
aware of the benefits and risks of applying Large Language Models and AI. Despite
the potential and promises of both, McKenzie said we need to pay attention to the
dangers. "As machine learning improves, [and] as AI becomes increasingly able to self-correct,
and in many combat situations, the period of decision making is very, very small.
You're going to become increasingly reliant on something that appears logical, appears
lucid... [a]nd so I think the way we master that's going to be very important. And
I think it's a risk with AI frankly.” Watch their discussion here.
Following the Fireside Chat, the second panel examined Artificial Intelligence and Great Power Competition. The panel featured:
Andrew Whiskeyman, PhD, (Moderator) National Defense University
Lieutenant General (Ret) John Bansemer, Director of the CyberAI Project, CSET
Julian Mueller-Kaler, Deputy Director, Strategic Foresight Hub at the Stimson Center
Daniel Remler, AI Policy Coordinator, Department of State
Watch the complete panel here.
The day concluded with a third panel discussing The Role of AI-Powered Disinformation in Conflict. The panel featured:
Joshua M. Scacco, PhD, (Moderator) Director, Center for Sustainable Democracy University of South Florida
Heather Ashby, PhD, Senior Strategy and Management Consultant, Corner Alliance
Todd C. Helmus, PhD, Senior Behavioral Scientist, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Mark Abdollahian, PhD, Professor, Claremont Graduate University
Watch the complete panel here.
Day 2 (March 6, 2024)
The second day of GNSI Tampa Summit 3 began with Dr. Adib Farhadi, Conference Host, welcoming attendees, and speakers to the event.
Following Dr. Farhadi's introduction, Dr. Prasant Mohapatra, Provost, Vice President, and chief academic officer of the University of South Florida, provided the day's opening remarks. Watch Mohapatra’s full remarks here.
Taking the stage after Dr. Mohapatra, General Bryan P. Fenton, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) launched into a powerful
speech about using a data-centric approach to transform for the future and “invest
in our people, in education, in workforce development, and at some point in utilize[e]
the technology [to have] a skilled, innovative and creative workforce, specifically
building digital fluency and technologists as well.” Watch Fenton’s full remarks here.
The Summit’s first roundtable followed General Fenton and examined Data Dominance and its Impact on AI. The Roundtable featured:
David Oakley, PhD (Moderator), Academic Director, Global and National Security Institute, University of South Florida
Alexandra Seymour, Staff Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee, House Homeland
Security Committee
John Turner, Acting Deputy CDAO for Policy, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office,
U.S. Department of Defense
Roberto González, PhD San José State University
Watch the complete Roundtable here.
The morning session concluded with a panel discussion on Small States’ Perspectives on AI and Global Security. The panel featured:
Golfo Alexopoulos, PhD (Moderator), University of South Florida
Joel Brynielsson, PhD, Research Director, Swedish Defense Research Agency
Peter Bovet Emanuel, PhD Researcher, Swedish Defense University, Centre for Special Operations Research
Major Juha Kukkola, PhD, Finnish Defense Forces
Vilma Luoma-aho, PhD, Professor and Vice Dean of Education, University of Jyvaskyla
Watch the full panel discussion here.
* * * *
The afternoon of sessions of day 2, featured 4 breakout sessions, which were available for in-person attendees only (they were not live-streamed or recorded). Those breakouts were:
Breakout 1: Europe, Russia and AI-Enabled Security Threats
Breakout 2: Medical Integration of Artificial Intelligence Panel
Breakout 3: Artificial Intelligence Simulation/ Wargame
Breakout 4: AI: What’s Next
Day 3 (March 7, 2024)
The final day of GNSI Tampa Summit 3 took a pivot from a broad national security perspective to focus on how private industry and local Tampa Bay researchers and innovators are leading the development of artificial intelligence.
The morning kicked off with remarks from Dr. Eric Eisenberg, Senior Vice President of University-Community Partnerships at USF, emphasizing how
USF and the Tampa Bay area is shaping the AI revolution. Watch Eisenberg's full remarks here.
GNSI Executive Director, and former commander of USCENTCOM, General (Ret) Frank McKenzie, returned to the podium for the final time, praising and thanking everyone who had
made GNSI Tampa Summit 3 a success. Watch McKenzie's full remarks here.
Following the welcome remarks, Keynote Speaker Craig Martell, PhD, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer for the U.S. Department of Defense
led a lively discussion with the audience, reframing AI as statics at scale. While
leading the technology charge for the DOD, Martell also cautioned against whipping
the AI frenzy too much: "“70% of conversations about AI today are all hype. 70%, maybe
80. Our job is to find the 20 or 30% that's not." Watch Martell's full remarks here.
Building upon the insights shared in Dr. Martell’s keynote, the first panel of the
day focused on Applying Artificial Intelligence in Industry. The panel featured:
John Licato, PhD, (Moderator), University of South Florida
Leslie Babich, Director, SOFWERX
Todd Borkey, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, HII
Peter Yu, Director, Center for Law and Intellectual Property, Texas A&M
Jags Kandasamy, CEO, Latent AI
Watch the full panel discussion here.
After a short break, the sixth and final panel of the Summit convened to examine How Tampa Bay is Leading AI Innovations. That panel featured:
Chris Hunter (Moderator), Chief Legal Officer, IWP Family Office
Adrian Avakian, Founder/CEO, TheIncLab
Triparna de Vreede, PhD, Associate Director, School of Information and Management, University of South Florida
(de Vreede was scheduled to participate but was unable to)
Watch their discussion here.
Just before the lunch break on Day 3, the Summit introduced a new featured segment Student Research Quick Shots. PhD candidates at USF shared their research projects for the crowd and, afterwards,
spent time with attendees in a poster session. The featured reewere:
• Daeun Lee, PhD candidate and Visiting Scholar
Learning Co-Speech Gesture for Multimodal Aphasia Type Detection
• Stephen Steinle, PhD candidate
Applications of Cognitive Modeling in Multifactor Authentication
• Nicolas Bustos, PhD Candidate
FT-CycleGAN: a novel frequency-based loss function for visual-and-IR image translation
to boost multimodal object detection
• Mehrsa Mashhadi, PhD Candidate
The Impact of using Data Fusion with Synthetic Images on Multimodal Object Detection
• Dr. Paul Hungler, Associate Professor, Queens University
Intelligent Dynamically Adaptive Simulation for Medical Trauma Team Training
Watch all of the Quick Shot presentations here.
* * * *
The afternoon started off with an exciting Keynote Fireside Chat featuring Ylli Bajraktari
with Dr. Prasant Mohapatra. Bajraktari is the President and CEO of the Special Competitive
Studies Project and Mohapatra is the Provost, Vice President and chief academic officer
of USF. They examined the relationships between academia, private industry and government
in the transformation of artificial intelligence. Bajraktari said it is vital for
the U.S. and its allies and partners to stay committed to the cutting-edge tech. “These
technologies can fundamentally change care, education, all the things that these transform.
We embrace this opportunity. We have a chance to build prosperity for the American
people and our allies and partners, build a country for the future and also stay ahead
of [out competitors].” Watch the full discussion here.
The final Roundtable of the conference followed, examining the process for Developing the Future AI Workforce. The Roundtable featured:
Matthew Mullarkey, PhD, (Moderator), University of South Florida
Sharon Daniels, Senior Leader Arria NLG
Avik Batra, Managing Director, Accenture Song
Joe Partlow, Chief Technology Officer, ReliaQuest
Angela Cough, Senior Advisor, Digital Talent, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office,
U.S. Department of Defense
Eric Vogelpohl, Chief Technology Officer, Presidio
The day and conference was closed by Dr. Farhadi expressing gratitude to the attendees, speakers and staff for their participation in GNSI Tampa Summit 3.
SAVE THE DATES:
April 10, 2024
GNSI Policy Dialogue: The Iran Enigma: Navigating Strategy and Security
May 15, 2024
GNSI Policy Dialogue: Endangered Freedoms: Transnational Repression in North America
September 24-25, 2024
GNSI Tampa Summit 4: Middle East Collective Security
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