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AI Exploration opportunities (AIEs) (AI Forward Initiative) is sponsored by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA's AI Forward initiative focuses on trustworthy AI systems for national security missions and explores new directions for AI research. AIEs are fast-moving funding opportunities for researchers to establish the feasibility of new AI concepts within 18 months of award.
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Department of War organization. Reimagining the future of artificial intelligence for national security DARPA’s Information Innovation Office Director Dr. Kathleen Fisher presents on trustworthy AI at the DARPA Forward event in Pullman, Wash. , on Sept.
13, 2022. AI Forward is DARPA’s initiative to explore new directions for artificial intelligence (AI) research that will result in trustworthy systems for national security missions. To initiate AI Forward, DARPA hosted two workshops in summer 2023 at which participants brainstormed new directions for the field.
Approximately 200 participants from across the commercial sector, academia, and government attended and generated ideas that inform DARPA’s next phase of AI exploratory projects, known as AI Exploration opportunities (AIEs). AIEs are a key component of the agency’s broader AI investment strategy aimed at ensuring the United States maintains an advantage in this critical and rapidly accelerating technology area.
What Does it Mean to Be Trustworthy? Despite progress in the field, AI still requires significant investment and advancement to develop technology that reliably operates, interacts appropriately with people, and meets the most pressing national security and societal needs in an ethical manner. DARPA seeks qualified researchers and experts to join the agency and help define the future of AI technology.
Trustworthy AI Research Thrusts --> DARPA experts estimate that research in the following areas will be essential to creating trustworthy technology: Foundational theory, to understand the art of the possible, bound the limits of particular system instantiations, and inform guardrails for AI systems in challenging domains such as national security; AI engineering, to predictably build systems that work as intended in the real world and not just in the lab; and Human-AI teaming, to enable systems to serve as fluent, intuitive, trustworthy teammates to people with various backgrounds.
Building on 60+ Years of AI Research DARPA has been generating groundbreaking research and development for 65 years – leading to game-changing military capabilities as well as icons of modern society such as initiating the research field that rendered self-driving cars, and developing the technology that lead to Apple’s Siri.
Since 2018 through the AI Next campaign , we invested more than $2 billion to advance AI for national security purposes. Today, roughly 70% of DARPA’s current programs benefit from AI and machine learning technology. We’re investing in more than 30 programs aimed at the exploration and advancement of a full range of AI techniques.
These include symbolic reasoning, statistical machine learning, meta-cognition, explanation and assurance, and hybrid methods. We want to push beyond second-wave machine learning techniques toward contextual reasoning capabilities, so that machines could be more than just tools, and function as true partners. Building on the success of AI Next, the AI Forward initiative focuses on trustworthiness for these systems.
This focus will be critical to developing technology that reliably operates, interacts appropriately with people, and meets the most pressing national security and societal needs in an ethical manner.
EMHAT: Exploratory Models of Human-AI Teams FACT: Friction for Accountability in Conversational Transactions FoundSci: Foundation Models for Scientific Discovery Reimagine the Future of AI for National Security How to Create AI Technology We Can Trust | Ep 66 The DARPA perspective on AI and autonomy at the DoD | Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) | March 2024 Prepping for Future of AI Through High-Risk, High-Reward R&D | Federal News Network | March 2024 Kathleen Fisher: DARPA and AI for national security | The Gradient podcast | December 2023
According to the current listing, eligibility includes: Qualified researchers and experts, typically from commercial sector, academia, and government. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
AI Exploration opportunities (AIEs) (AI Forward Initiative) is funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Verify program details on the funder's official page before applying.
Start from the official opportunity page linked in this listing — it carries the sponsor's submission instructions.
DoD Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI) is sponsored by Department of Defense (DoD) - Office of Naval Research (ONR). The Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI), administered by the Department of Defense Office of Naval Research, supports basic research in science and engineering at U. S.
SBIR SF254-D1206: Knowledge-Guided Test and Evaluation Frameworks for proliferated Low Earth Orbit Constellations is sponsored by U.S. Air Force. DOD SBIR topic SF254-D1206: Knowledge-Guided Test and Evaluation Frameworks for proliferated Low Earth Orbit Constellations. Component: U.S. Air Force. Command: SDA. Solicitation: DoD SBIR 2025.4. Phase(s): D2PII, II, SPII. Status: Pre-Release. Open date: 3/4/2026.
DPA26BZ05-DV019 asks small businesses to reduce ISR video transmission from small drones by 90 to 99 percent while preserving what an operator actually needs, on a Jetson-class board at a 2-watt final power budget. It is Direct-to-Phase-II, up to $1.5 million base plus a $500,000 option, and its exclusion list — no weapon release, no lethal engagement, no named-person identification — is the most strategically revealing paragraph in DARPA's FY26 Release 5.
Read articleDPA26BZ05-DV018 is the largest award in DARPA's FY26 SBIR Release 5 — up to $3 million over 18 months, Direct-to-Phase-II only. It funds four subsystem tracks for an underwater 3D concrete printer that uses seafloor sediment and seawater with under 20 percent binder. Here is what the Trenton program already proved, why the track structure is really a supplier-qualification exercise, and who can clear the prior-feasibility bar in the four weeks that remain.
Read articleTwo weeks after the DARPA Lift Challenge ended with the winner at 3.84:1 — short of the 4:1 target — DARPA posted a Direct-to-Phase-II SBIR that requires empirical proof of a 4:1 payload-to-weight ratio to bid. DPA26BZ05-DV022 offers up to $1.5 million over 24 months across two tracks that map exactly onto the Challenge's two design prizes. Here is who can actually clear the entry bar, what the month-9, month-18, and month-24 gates demand, and why the certification language is the real story.
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