Four Ways F5 Supports U.S. National Security AI Objectives
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform many aspects of our culture and society, including important responsibilities of the U.S. federal government. These include the duties of national security agencies that play a vital role in collecting, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence information to protect the nation’s security.
To ensure AI systems and infrastructures are secure and trustworthy enough to take part in determining national defense strategies and intelligence analysis, the federal government has delivered first-ever guidance for AI governance and risk management for use in national security missions.
Last October, the White House issued its first-ever National Security Memorandum (NSM) on artificial intelligence. The NSM directs the U.S. government to take steps to ensure that the U.S. leads the world’s development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI; harnesses cutting-edge AI technologies; and advances international consensus and governance around AI.
To comply with this new initiative brings new challenges—especially for managing the complexity of APIs and data flows required to interconnect various AI services. With our F5 AI Gateway and a wide range of F5 API security tools, we are uniquely positioned to assist government agencies to meet these evolving demands in the following four ways:
- Provide trustworthy AI with F5 AI Gateway
- Deliver API security for critical AI systems
- Enable AI transparency and risk management
- Optimize multicloud and on-prem deployments
The memorandum emphasizes the need for trusted, verifiable AI systems that operate safely and predictably across agencies. For this reason, the federal government must ensure AI models are properly governed, updated, and monitored for biases and security risks.
As a means of controlling how data is accessed and which models are invoked, F5 AI Gateway serves as a secure interface between AI models and applications. F5 tools allow agencies to version-control AI models, verify input/output integrity, and enforce access policies to prevent unauthorized usage.
In addition, real-time monitoring and observability tools integrated with F5 ensure that AI models used in national security remain compliant with governance frameworks outlined in the NSM. These capabilities align directly with the NSM’s risk management focus, helping federal agencies manage risks from drift, misuse, and vulnerability exposure of AI models.
The federal memorandum stresses data security and interoperability between AI services and national security systems. Given the nature of AI, which relies on APIs to gather and exchange data, robust API security is also a priority.
F5 API security solutions protect against injection attacks, unauthorized access, and API endpoint misuse, ensuring data exchanged with AI systems is secure.
F5 helps ensure this because our tools feature real-time traffic inspection and anomaly detection to mitigate zero-day attacks, aligning with the “safety and resilience” principles outlined in the memorandum.
Our solutions facilitate encrypted, low-latency API communication between multicloud environments—critical for federal agencies that span both on-premises systems and cloud-based AI tools. By ensuring secure, policy-compliant API management, F5 can help agencies foster seamless, secure, and interoperable data exchange to drive AI decision-making processes at the national security level.
The White House memorandum highlights the importance of transparent AI systems with continuous monitoring to ensure accountability and risk management. Agencies must understand and track how AI decisions are made to mitigate risks.
F5 AI Gateway provides comprehensive audit logs and dashboards that offer visibility into every API call and interaction between AI systems and other applications.
This enables the enforcement of explainable AI policies, which requires AI models to document decisions and responses for later review, aligning with the NSM’s emphasis on governance and accountability.
This also means that agencies can deploy risk management workflows that integrate with F5 API management tools to flag anomalies or suspicious behaviors in real time. Ensuring government workers can identify and mitigate risks rapidly helps prevent potential breaches or errors before they escalate into security issues.
The NSM recognizes the need to balance multicloud deployments with existing on-premises environments, especially for agencies with complex, distributed systems.
F5 provides consistent security and API policies across hybrid environments—whether on-premises or in the cloud. This supports the NSM's objective of ensuring secure AI adoption across varying infrastructures.
In addition, with traffic routing and load-balancing capabilities, F5 ensures that AI services perform optimally across clouds without sacrificing security. By managing policies across both on-prem and multicloud environments, agencies can securely scale AI initiatives, even as infrastructure complexity grows.
Securing AI innovation in the U.S. government
Our F5 AI Gateway and API security solutions align with the White House memorandum by addressing the key challenges facing federal AI adoption: security, trust, transparency, and interoperability. The F5 platform ensures government workers can confidently deploy, govern, and scale AI initiatives—while maintaining compliance with strict national security requirements.
As U.S. agencies continue their journey toward secure and resilient AI systems, F5 stands ready to partner with the federal government to provide the tools needed for robust governance, seamless API management, and AI-driven transformation. With our solutions, federal agencies can focus on fulfilling their missions while meeting the highest standards for safety, transparency, and trust.