What Tech Is CBP Spending Its Budget On? Hear In Person From Its CIO & CTO

• CBP’s IT budget runs about $2 billion a year
• All 276 CBP applications are slated for the cloud by 2028
• Hear from CBP’s two foremost tech leaders, Sonny Bhagowalia and Sunil Madhugiri, at the 2026 FedCiv Summit

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has a roughly $2 billion IT budget, a cloud migration nearing the finish line and a generative AI assistant in the hands of its entire workforce. That makes it one of the most ambitious technology enterprises in the federal government. The two executives steering it, CBP Chief Information Officer Sonny Bhagowalia and Chief Technology Officer Sunil Madhugiri, will each deliver a keynote at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 FedCiv Summit on Oct. 29. Bhagowalia will open the summit, and Madhugiri will take the stage later in the morning for a keynote of his own.

Together, Bhagowalia and Madhugiri set the technology vision for CBP and determine which priorities move forward. Bhagowalia directs the agency’s IT strategy and spending in his dual role as CIO and assistant commissioner of the Office of Information and Technology. Madhugiri leads the office where emerging technologies are researched, demonstrated and vetted before they reach the field. For contractors, their 2026 FedCiv Summit keynotes are a chance to hear CBP’s technology priorities directly from the people who set them.

Make sure your organization is in the room. Register for the 2026 FedCiv Summit before it’s too late!

What Tech Is CBP Spending Its Budget On?

CBP’s technology dollars flow from several streams, and industry plays a major role in spending them. Bhagowalia oversees roughly 2,000 federal employees and 4,000 government contractors. Here is where the money is headed:

• Trade systems: The administration’s FY27 request includes $136 million for the Automated Commercial Environment, or ACE, CBP’s trade processing system. The figure is part of CBP’s $18.9 billion FY27 request.
• Counter-drug and counter-drone tech: The request carries $322 million for counter-drug technology and $80 million for counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
• Multi-year border funding: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act gave CBP $64.73 billion in mandatory funding, most of it available through FY29. Some of those reconciliation dollars will buy advanced border security technology.
• AI: The request would staff up the office of CBP’s chief AI officer and fund AI initiatives that speed cargo container screening. That detail comes from the agency’s budget justification, according to CT Strategies.
• Cloud: CBP plans to move all 276 of its applications to the cloud by Jan. 20, 2028, MeriTalk reported.

At the 2026 FedCiv Summit, Bhagowalia and Madhugiri may offer a firsthand look at which of these priorities are moving fastest.

Who Is Sonny Bhagowalia?

Bhagowalia has led CBP’s Office of Information and Technology as assistant commissioner and CIO since June 2020. He served first in an acting capacity before receiving the full-time appointment in February 2021.

A Five-Time Government CIO

CBP marks Bhagowalia’s fifth turn as a government CIO. His earlier CIO posts were:

• Bureau of Indian Affairs: Reconnected 5,500 users at 148 locations to the internet, a month ahead of schedule
• Interior Department: Oversaw a $1 billion IT portfolio across 13 bureaus and offices
• State of Hawaii: Served as the state’s first CIO and overhauled its outdated technology infrastructure
• Treasury Department: Ran a $3.9 billion IT portfolio spanning 368 systems

Between Interior and Hawaii, Bhagowalia was a deputy associate administrator at GSA. There he helped the federal CIO and CTO roll out governmentwide initiatives including open data, cloud computing and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, a.k.a. FedRAMP. He also spent eight years at the FBI, rising to assistant director, and 14 years at Boeing.

From Cloud Blueprint to Cloud Finish Line

Bhagowalia’s cloud story has come full circle. He helped envision the federal cloud initiative in 2009 as Interior’s CIO. Today, CBP is more than 88 percent complete at the application tier and a little more than halfway through its database tier, he told Fed Gov Today.

The payoff he describes reaches all the way to the agents in the field. CBP processes two-thirds of its data directly at the edge.

“Imagine our agents getting answers on the spot instead of hours later,” Bhagowalia said in an earlier conversation with the outlet.

He holds AI to an equally exacting bar. Any AI tool at CBP “has to meet law enforcement standards,” he said at IBM Think Gov 2026 in June. He also made CBP one of the first federal agencies to explore post-quantum cryptography.

A Two-Time Wash100 Award Winner

Bhagowalia won his second Wash100 Award in 2026, earning the honor for his work transforming federal agencies through IT, information resource management and cybersecurity. Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson pointed to the full arc of his career, from federal service to state government to industry.

“CIO Bhagowalia has one of the most impressive backgrounds in federal service,” Garrettson said.

His other honors, per his LinkedIn, include:

• 2024 Wash100 Award
• 2006 Presidential Rank Award, presented by President George W. Bush for his FBI work
• Boeing Technical Excellence Fellowship, recognizing the company’s top 1 percent of engineers

His leadership philosophy centers on giving teams a “safe zone” to bring forward new ideas.

Who Is Sunil Madhugiri?

Madhugiri joined CBP in 2019 as chief architect and has served as CTO since 2021, after a year in the role on an acting basis.

30 Years on the Industry Side

Madhugiri spent three decades in the private sector before entering public service. His career includes:

• AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Laboratories
• Sun Microsystems Federal
• Oracle, as an architect on federal digital transitions
• Salesforce, building federal technology solutions

CBP’s Front Door for Emerging Tech

For contractors, Madhugiri’s office may be the most important door at CBP to know. The Office of the CTO manages vendor engagement, researches emerging technologies and arranges proof-of-concept demonstrations. Madhugiri also chairs the Technical Review Board, which works to improve the quality, cost-effectiveness, sustainability and resilience of CBP’s IT solutions.

Putting AI Into Production

Under Madhugiri, CBP’s AI work has moved well past pilots:

• Scheduling: Approved open-source models cut Border Patrol scheduling for more than 20,000 agents from about 16 hours every two weeks to eight minutes, MeriTalk reported.
• Agentic workflows and code assistants: CBP is pursuing agentic AI to automate complex administrative tasks. All CBP software engineers are now required to use AI code assistants, which has already saved millions of dollars, according to the Homeland Security Defense Forum.

Madhugiri saw the shift coming early.

“Automation is moving from the edges, all the way inside into the enterprise,” he told FedScoop almost four years ago.

What Will Bhagowalia and Madhugiri Discuss at the 2026 FedCiv Summit?

Bhagowalia’s Opening Keynote

In the keynote that opens the 2026 FedCiv Summit, Bhagowalia may discuss:

• CBP’s FY27 technology spending priorities
• The final stretch of cloud migration
• Rolling out generative AI agencywide
• Post-quantum readiness
• Edge computing and field connectivity

Madhugiri’s Keynote

Later in the morning, Madhugiri may discuss:

• Vendor engagement and proof-of-concept opportunities
• Agentic AI workflows
• AI code assistants and faster software delivery
• Evaluating emerging technologies for CBP

Register now to hear from both CBP technology leaders at the 2026 FedCiv Summit!

Why Should GovCons Attend the 2026 FedCiv Summit?

Bhagowalia and Madhugiri headline a 2026 FedCiv Summit keynote lineup that also includes:

• Department of Labor CIO Mangala Kuppa
• GSA Chief Acquisition Officer Greg Justice
• SBA Deputy Administrator Bill Briggs

Panels will cover observability and shared services, human capital, digital labor and AI, and the OneGov Effect. Speakers include leaders from OPM, Interior, NOAA’s NESDIS and GSA, alongside industry executives from CGI Federal, SAP, LogicMonitor, Kpler and Precise Software Solutions. Networking runs throughout the day, giving attendees time to engage with the officials setting civilian IT priorities.

Register today for the 2026 FedCiv Summit on Oct. 29!