FedRAMP has proven critical to agencies like the State Department that are increasing their reliance on the cloud to operate in a time of telework.

Cloud storage and machine learning are among the catalog of services being offered the 17 National Labs and other research sites as part of a five-year agreement.

Twelve government and industry leaders discuss the opportunities to advance cloud, security and agility in government, during the pandemic and into the future.

IT leaders are overwhelmed with security and regulation requirements. But using AI-enabled tools and a holistic cloud strategy can help agencies better mitigate security risk.

"We have to look at how do we drive forward given where we're at," CIO Aaron Weis said. "And so because of that reality, I believe the next step ... is to shift to cloud."

The pandemic revealed the gaps in agency cloud migration efforts, but research shows that those who take advantage of FedRAMP-approved services can modernize faster.