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AI Forward Initiative (AI Exploration opportunities - AIEs) is sponsored by DARPA. 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. AIEs are unique funding opportunities for researchers to establish the feasibility of new AI concepts.
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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: Educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and businesses of all sizes, particularly those with groundbreaking, high-risk/high-reward ideas. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
AI Forward Initiative (AI Exploration opportunities - AIEs) is funded by 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.
DARPA DSO Office-wide BAA is a grant from the DARPA Defense Sciences Office that funds innovative research proposals investigating approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems for national security applications. The Defense Sciences Office solicits high-risk, high-reward R&D ideas across all scientific and engineering disciplines that could provide technological surprise for national defense. Eligible applicants include universities, nonprofits, and industry organizations capable of satisfying the government's research needs. Submissions are reviewed by DARPA program managers who are visionary leaders spanning industry, government, and academia.
DARPA-PS-26-04: CyPhER Forge is a grant from DARPA Tactical Technology Office that funds research aimed at revolutionizing defense Test and Evaluation (T&E) by breaking the direct link between physical system complexity and test duration. The Cyber Physical Systems Executing in Real Time (CyPhER) Forge program seeks innovative approaches to accelerate and modernize how the Department of Defense evaluates complex physical systems. The solicitation was published February 25, 2026, with an abstract deadline of April 15, 2026 and an oral proposal package deadline of June 15, 2026. Managed by DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, this opportunity is open to all proposers meeting agency requirements.
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.
AI Forward Initiative (via AI Exploration opportunities - AIEs) is sponsored by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). AI Forward is DARPA's initiative to explore new directions for artificial intelligence research that will result in trustworthy systems for national security missions. It focuses on building AI systems that reliably operate in adversarial, ambiguous, and high-stakes environments.
DARPA's FALCON topic (DPA26BZ03-DV016) asks small businesses to fuse efficient machine learning with large language models into a single system for interactive statistical analysis of huge datasets — for the enterprise and the battlefield. It opened July 22 and closes August 19, 2026. Here is what the topic is actually asking for, why the ML-plus-LLM framing is harder than it sounds, and how a qualified team should scope a proposal in the four-week window.
Read articleDARPA'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.
Read articleDARPA'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.
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