Joint Services Partner With U.S. Allies in Challenge Competition to Develop Tactical AI

The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force are partnering with allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to develop artificial intelligence technologies that can improve tactical decision-making.

The joint services sponsored a challenge competition that began in April with a call for white papers from small-business and non-traditional international industry. Three winning companies earned a total of $150,000 in awards, and now will receive further mentoring to assist them in identifying opportunities for follow-on contracts and collaboration with the Defense Department.

In the first round of the competition, 75 judges from 32 Army and DOD organizations selected 10 finalists from countries including the United Kingdom, France, Israel, Switzerland, and Finland. All finalists received $10,000 and an invitation to the second round of the competition.

From these finalists three winners were chosen: MashallAI, a Finish company that proposed “Configurable Deep Learning Pipelines for DoD Computer Vision”; LatticeFlow, a Swiss company that pitched “Trustworthy AI for Mission-Critical Domains”; and Cyber Defence Service, a U.K.-based company that proposed “Situational Awareness Through Deep Learning Signal Analysis of Wireless Technologies.”

“This competition demonstrates how joint-service and allied coalition partnerships can open new doors for doing business with the U.S. DOD,” said Nathan Anderson, DEVCOM Atlantic International Technology Center technical director.

The tri-service competition was sponsored by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, U.S. Air Force AFWERX, U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research-Global and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.