Gavin Kliger, a former member of the Department of War’s DOGE team, has been appointed Chief Data Officer at the Department, where he will play a central role in executing its artificial intelligence strategy.
In the position, Kliger will focus on aligning and overseeing the day-to-day execution of the Department’s AI projects. His responsibilities include working directly with U.S. frontier AI labs and helping ensure that AI initiatives maintain strategic focus, secure access to critical data, and deliver capabilities intended to support the warfighter.
“We are in a global competition for military AI dominance, and America must build on its leadership to extend our advantage over adversaries,” said Kliger. “My mission is to integrate the unparalleled innovation of America’s private sector with the Department’s operational expertise to rapidly deliver advanced AI capabilities to our warfighters. By driving pace-setting projects with wartime urgency, we will ensure cutting-edge technology translates into decisive battlefield advantages for the United States.”
The @DeptofWar today announced the appointment of Mr. Gavin Kliger (@gavin_kliger) as Chief Data Officer, a role that places him at the center of the Department’s most ambitious AI efforts.
“We are in a global competition for military AI dominance, and America must build on its… pic.twitter.com/VUPHFUq7QD
— Department of War CTO (@DoWCTO) March 6, 2026
Kliger previously served on Secretary Hegseth’s Department of War DOGE team, where he helped launch GenAI.mil, the Department’s enterprise AI platform. During that time, he also contributed to the Drone Dominance program, an effort aimed at rapidly fielding large quantities of American-made one-way attack drones for military use.
Before entering government service, Kliger worked as a senior software engineer at Databricks, where he was part of the company’s technical staff. His earlier experience includes engineering roles at Twitter and research work at the Berkeley NetSys Lab focused on cloud-based systems and infrastructure automation. In 2023, he was also a featured speaker at KubeCon Europe, where he presented work on Kubernetes controllers and release systems.
Kliger holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
(AI was used in part to facilitate this article.)
