DARPA's New BAA Offers Up to $5M for AI and Cybersecurity Breakthroughs
March 4, 2026 · 2 min read
Jared Klein
DARPA's Information Innovation Office has released its FY2026 Office-Wide Broad Agency Announcement, solicitation HR001126S0001, seeking proposals that "fundamentally reshape the nation's capabilities" in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and complex software systems. Individual awards range from $500,000 to $5 million.
Four Research Thrusts at the Edge of Possible
The I2O BAA organizes its interests into four priority areas. First: transformative AI — systems that are trustworthy, explainable, and capable of interacting competently with human operators. Second: resilient, adaptable, and secure software and complex systems. Third: offensive and defensive cybersecurity, including privacy-preserving technologies. Fourth: what DARPA calls "fighting in the information domain" — cognitive operations, digital artifact tracking, and countering adversarial influence.
The bar is high. DARPA explicitly states that incremental or evolutionary improvements will not be considered. The agency wants disruptive concepts capable of redefining the state of the art.
How to Apply
Proposal abstracts are due November 1, 2026, with full proposals due November 30 — both at 5:00 PM ET. Abstracts are mandatory before full proposals; I2O reviews them for relevance, and only invited abstracts advance to the full review stage. The BAA is open to universities, companies, and research organizations.
Prospective applicants should access the full solicitation through the DARPA BAA portal or via SAM.gov.
A Window for AI Researchers and Startups
DARPA's office-wide BAAs are among the most flexible federal R&D funding vehicles. Unlike topic-specific solicitations, they accept a wide range of proposals aligned with the office's broad research interests — making them particularly attractive for AI researchers and cybersecurity firms with novel approaches that don't fit neatly into narrower programs.
With awards running up to $5 million and DARPA's track record of backing technologies that reshape entire industries, this BAA deserves a close read from any team working at the frontier of AI or information security. For a comprehensive guide to every active DARPA AI program, in-depth coverage is available on the Granted blog.