Original Broadcast Date: 05/10/2026
Presented by Workday Government
Commerce Department CIO Brian Epley is leading an ambitious effort to reshape how the department approaches cloud computing, enterprise technology and artificial intelligence. During an interview on Fed Gov Today, Epley explains how what begins as a mission-driven infrastructure need at NOAA quickly evolves into a departmentwide modernization strategy centered on enterprise collaboration, direct industry partnerships and long-term scalability.
The catalyst for the initiative comes from NOAA’s growing need for operational resilience, particularly within weather-related missions that require significant cloud infrastructure capacity. Epley says NOAA approaches him seeking a faster and more scalable way to acquire cloud services directly from original equipment manufacturers instead of relying on fragmented contracting approaches. What starts as a review of a single procurement quickly becomes something much larger.
Epley sees the opportunity not only as a solution for NOAA, but also as a chance to create a unified enterprise strategy across the Commerce Department. Rather than allowing individual bureaus to pursue separate cloud contracts independently, he pushes for a “One Commerce” model that brings multiple organizations together under a shared approach. He says the department assembles a cross-functional team led jointly by NOAA and Commerce leadership to identify cloud requirements across the agency’s many bureaus.
One of the biggest challenges, according to Epley, is separating the different components of cloud acquisition. He explains that cloud services often combine infrastructure, labor and support services into a single conversation. Commerce chooses instead to focus first on the infrastructure layer — the foundational compute and utility services that support mission systems. Epley describes this as establishing the “bedrock” that future innovation can build upon.
The department also looks outside its own organization for guidance. Epley says Commerce studies governmentwide acquisition strategies already in use, including the Defense Department’s Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability approach. Rather than reinventing the wheel, Commerce partners with the General Services Administration to determine how existing acquisition vehicles and governmentwide strategies can support the department’s needs more efficiently.
That partnership leads Commerce toward the GSA Multiple Award Schedule as the preferred contracting vehicle. Epley says the strategy creates a scalable marketplace that can support multiple cloud service providers instead of locking the department into a single vendor. While not every major cloud provider is immediately available during the initial rollout, he notes that industry partners are eager to participate as the initiative expands.
Epley acknowledges that enterprise modernization efforts often create friction inside large federal organizations. Individual bureaus may worry
Consistency becomes another major goal of the strategy. Epley says that without an enterprise-wide framework, bureaus could continue creating separate contracts that appear similar but operate differently. Over time, that inconsistency weakens the value and efficiency of enterprise procurement. By standardizing how cloud infrastructure is acquired while still allowing flexibility in provider selection, Commerce hopes to simplify modernization efforts across the department.
The lessons learned from the cloud initiative are already shaping Commerce’s broader technology strategy, especially in artificial intelligence. Epley explains that the same integrated product team model used for the cloud effort is now helping Commerce organize and evaluate AI use cases across its bureaus. Instead of having isolated AI projects emerge independently, the department gathers stakeholders together to identify common needs and opportunities for shared solutions.
That collaborative process leads Commerce to partner with GSA on USAI implementation. Epley says Commerce becomes the first federal department to deploy the platform, giving bureaus access to multiple leading AI models rather than investing heavily in only one or two systems. The department’s AI use case inventory reveals that many bureaus share similar requirements, including chatbot capabilities and API access, reinforcing the value of an enterprise-wide approach.
Throughout the interview, Epley repeatedly emphasizes the importance of collaboration across the federal ecosystem. He encourages fellow CIOs to study existing government solutions, engage directly with industry partners and work closely with procurement executives and financial leaders. According to Epley, successful modernization requires agencies to think beyond isolated organizational boundaries and embrace a “one fight, one team” mindset.
For Commerce, the cloud initiative is about more than technology acquisition. Epley presents it as a blueprint for how agencies can scale modernization, accelerate innovation and create stronger partnerships across government and industry while preparing for the next generation of AI and emerging technologies.