NSA to Undergo Largest Reorganization in Decades, Creating Separate AI, China, and Cybersecurity Organizations

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) is preparing for its largest internal reorganization in at least a decade.

Current and former U.S. officials familiar with the agency’s restructuring plan shared this with The Washington Post.

Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, the NSA Director and Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, initiated the reorganization.

The plan calls for creating five new organizations at the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade: artificial intelligence, China, cybersecurity, combat support, and global intelligence.

Each will be headed by a separate “mission director,” who will effectively have authority equivalent to that of an NSA deputy director.

As part of the reorganization, the elite hacking unit Tailored Access Operations (TAO), which specializes in penetrating secure digital systems in countries around the world and conducting offensive cyber operations, will come under the purview of the new director for global intelligence.

At the same time, it remains unclear whether the new organizations will replace existing NSA divisions or be established as an additional layer of management above them.

The NSA is estimated to employ more than 30,000 military and civilian personnel, making it one of the largest elements of the U.S. intelligence community.

One of the new NSA leadership’s key priorities is developing artificial intelligence. The agency has already introduced an internal AI tool called Ask Mary for its personnel to use. The NSA also seeks access to advanced commercial AI models and aims to expand cooperation with U.S. AI companies.

According to former officials, NSA leadership regularly discusses artificial intelligence issues at the White House. The U.S. administration has also proposed a multibillion-dollar increase in investments in the IT infrastructure and computing capacity of the U.S. intelligence.

The newly appointed mission directors are expected to present their plans for reorganizing their respective divisions by the end of the month. The transition to the new model is expected to begin in mid-October, with full operational readiness targeted for mid-January 2027.

The previous major NSA reform, known as NSA 21, began in 2016 and involved dividing the agency into six directorates. It was expected to take two years to implement, but according to former officials, some elements of the reform remain incomplete.

The reorganization of the U.S. NSA comes amid an announcement by U.S. company Palantir of a strategic partnership with Nebius Group N.V., formerly known as Yandex N.V., which was the parent company of the Russian Yandex Group until 2024.