The appointment was announced following the establishment of the new position by the Pentagon in July 2020.
Iyer will be the highest ranking Indian American civilian at the Pentagon equivalent in rank to a three-star general, the release notes.
He will supervise an annual budget of $16 billion for U.S. Army IT operations and over 15,000 civilians and military personnel in over 100 countries, it said.
Iyer replaces acting CIO Greg Garcia, who stood in after the retirement earlier of Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford. Garcia was also serving as Armyâs chief data officer, but was replaced by David Markowitz in mid-October.
âThis move was not one that I had planned, but the call for public service is my duty,â Iyer wrote in a LinkedIn post. âItâs also an exciting opportunity to put technology front and center to Army modernization leveraging cloud, AI and data analytics to achieve digital overmatch against our adversaries.â