Lockheed Martin has announced the formation of Astris AI, a subsidiary focused on enabling the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions across the U.S. defense industrial base and commercial industry sectors that have high assurance requirements.  

Lockheed Martin has made significant investments in developing an industry-leading MLOps software capability, a generative AI platform tailored to high-assurance end users, and building a robust team of AI experts. Through Astris AI, these resources are now available externally, creating the opportunity for the defense industrial base and commercial companies to develop and deploy secure, resilient, and scalable AI solutions.  

Astris AI’s solutions are positioned to address the rapid pace of technological advancements, costs, and scaling challenges that organizations face in developing reliable, high-assurance AI solutions. The foundational tools available through Astris AI include Lockheed Martin’s proven AI Factory Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) and generative AI software platforms, built with the security and compliance required for entities operating in highly regulated environments. 

With an open-architecture approach, these platforms offer technology and cost advantages through modularity, providing adaptable and resilient AI built to keep customers ahead of the continuously evolving technology environment. Astris AI also delivers end-to-end AI consultative engineering services, including MLOps and generative AI strategy, implementation, training, scale model development, and deployment, that will empower organizations to own and maintain their AI tools, data, and solutions.  

With the soaring global demand for AI specialists exceeding the available workforce, companies face strong barriers to entry to developing and deploying AI solutions at scale. Astris AI mitigates those challenges by leveraging Lockheed Martin’s talented team of AI engineers who provide domain expertise, technology and consulting solutions.  

The infrastructure and experience of Lockheed Martin’s AI Factory ecosystem will serve as the backbone of the solutions being offered through Astris AI. The team of Lockheed Martin AI Center engineers supporting Astris AI is led by Mike Baylor, chief digital and AI officer, and Greg Forrest, director of AI Foundations.

“I'm proud to see the Lockheed Martin AI Center (LAIC) contributing to Astris AI's goal of developing secure and scalable AI solutions," said Forrest. "Lockheed Martin has made significant strides in AI/ML, and we're excited to apply these advancements to support our customers and help strengthen the defense industrial base.”

Astris AI is led by Chief Revenue Officer Donna O’Donnell, a seasoned leader with extensive experience in AI/ML and automation, who is poised to drive the company’s growth. Previously, O’Donnell served as global vice president of AI and intelligent automation sales at Xerox, where she oversaw automation sales operations globally, delivering solutions in intelligent automation, robotic process automation, generative AI, intelligent document processing, and machine learning. Before her time at Xerox, she held leadership roles at other leading technology firms, driving innovation and empowering teams.

"Astris AI is perfectly positioned to deliver AI/MLOps solutions across industries,” said O’Donnell. "By combining Lockheed Martin’s expertise with Astris AI’s agile approach, we're enabling organizations to navigate the complexities of the rapidly evolving technology landscape with high assurance AI solutions that deliver secure and reliable interactions, compliance, and responsible decision-making.” 

The formation of Astris AI underscores Lockheed Martin's commitment to advancing 21st Century Security, strengthening the defense industrial base and national security, while also demonstrating its leadership in integrating commercial technologies to help keep customers ahead of the growing threat environment. 

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