[netwanderer3]

Even though the NSA falls under Department of Defense, their stated mission is to collect and process global information so more or less it is functioning very similarly to a human brain, providing intelligence and guidance not only in the security area, but it's also influencing all American domestic and international policies.

Even back in 2010, the NSA was already collecting over 1.7 billion of communication records every day. As far as I know, that amount probably doubles every couple of year so just imagine the enormous size of data that they have to process. It's no wonder the NSA is the only single entity in the world that own gigantic centers of supercomputers. Without AI technologies their information analysis mission would be nearly impossible so it just makes perfect sense the NSA is after those technologies. Honestly I would be surprised if they don't already own quantum computing power.

In addition to low-level firmware codes, I imagine for all those 1.7 billion records of data to be routed back to the NSA every day without a trace, completely invisible to the rest of the world, it must have required another hidden layer of network protocol beyond the current OSI model that we have. The low-level firmware codes must work in sync and convert data following the model of this hidden network protocol for it to transfer away successfully without being detected.

For it to operate effectively, the NSA must be miles ahead of any Silicon Valley company. Their work is truly astonishing no matter how you look at it.