DARPA & Defense

DARPA's Non-Volatile Memory for Extreme Environments topic (DPA26BZ04-DV017) is a Direct-to-Phase-II SBIR worth $1.2 million for radiation-hardened NOR Flash that works from -269°C to +600°C. It opened July 22 and closes August 19, 2026. Here is why the no-Phase-I structure narrows the field to a handful of teams, what the rad-hard specs actually demand, and how a qualified company should sequence a proposal in under a month.

DARPA's FALCON SBIR topic (DPA26BZ04-DV016) is a Direct-to-Phase-II award worth $1.5 million to teams that can marry the statistical rigor of classical machine learning with the contextual reach of large language models. It opened July 22 and closes August 19, 2026. Here is why the no-Phase-I structure changes who can win, what the hallucination-mitigation requirement really demands, and how a small team should sequence a proposal in under four weeks.

DARPA-PS-26-04, published February 25, 2026 by the Tactical Technology Office, restructures the contract around three phases — Phase 0 Backbone (6 months), Phase 1 Base (12 months), Phase 2 Option (18 months) — and culminates in an instrumented flight-test campaign. The solicitation is not really about T&E. It is about the digital-twin and uncertainty-quantification middleware DoD needs for any AI-enabled combat system.

DARPA's Mathematics of Boosting Agentic Communication program — DSO-led, $2M Phase I cap, abstracts already in, full proposals due June 16, 2026 — is the first federal initiative to treat multi-agent AI communication as a mathematical object rather than a product feature. The Mendeleev-rediscovery benchmark in the solicitation is the tell.

The $46M FSHARP program is creating shelf-stable synthetic blood from freeze-dried components. A new SWiFT SBIR topic opened May 6 for autonomous field transfusion devices. What grant seekers in biomedical engineering need to know.

DARPA is betting that the future of quantum computing looks like classical computing — specialized processors wired together. The HARQ program funds 19 teams across two workstreams to prove it.

A step-by-step breakdown of the DARPA BAA process, from engaging program managers at Proposers Day to writing a winning white paper and navigating full proposal submission.

The FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act raises cost thresholds, exempts nontraditional contractors, and accelerates commercial integration. Here is what matters for small businesses, startups, and university labs competing for $145.7 billion in defense R&D.

CMMC 2.0 enforcement is live, with Level 2 third-party assessments hitting contracts by November 2026. For SBIR winners, university labs, and defense subcontractors, the compliance clock is ticking — and the penalties include False Claims Act liability.

The Trump administration designated Anthropic a supply chain risk after the company refused to remove AI safety restrictions. The fallout will reshape defense AI contracting for years.

DARPA CLARA funds up to $2M for high-assurance AI combining machine learning with automated reasoning. All software must be released open source under Apache 2.0.

The Pentagon is requesting $13.4B for autonomous systems in FY2026. Here is where robotics researchers and startups can compete for funding right now.

The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs just released $1.27 billion across 34 programs. Universities, nonprofits, and small businesses are all eligible.

A current catalog of open DARPA AI programs and BAAs — from I2O office-wide to CLARA, ML2P, and SABER. What is funded, what is closed, and how to respond.

The DoD FY2026 AI budget spans far more than DARPA. ONR, AFOSR, ARL, CDAO, and DIU all fund external researchers — here is how to find their solicitations.

New to DARPA? Break down the BAA process from executive summary to full proposal, including evaluation criteria and strategies that win awards.

Navigate DARPA BAAs, DOD SBIR/STTR, ONR, AFOSR, and ARO funding. Learn how defense proposals differ and how to win your first contract.