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The federal market is entering a new operating model

Tim Hartman — Thu, 14 May 2026 15:23:07 -0400

The old assumptions are no longer relevant.

For a long time, contractors could count on a market dictated by conventional buying patterns, stable points of entry, and longer runways for proving value. A new era has arrived, one where industry and government must collaborate to build a new operating model across government.

And two trends are driving the pace of change: artificial intelligence and the new comfort with commercial technologies in the heart of government infrastructure.

Already, we are seeing the impact: AI is changing how agencies choose, use, and rely on contractors.

Many of the underlying forces remain the same. Agencies still need modernization. They still need digital infrastructure. They still need access to relevant, timely data, and the ability to convert it into action at mission speed.

However, now they are judging those investments more critically. Leaders want to see their return on investment: what improves productivity, what saves money, what reduces risk, and what helps teams deliver faster. And they increasingly want emerging technologies to drive the solution.

In GovExec Intelligence’s March Fed Market Monitor, 72% of Federal IT decision makers said contractors will need to incorporate significantly more technologies and innovations to stay competitive.

At the same time, they are raising their expectations: 86% of IT decision-makers said contractors will need to provide more proof of success in all contracts.

All of this is driven by the opportunity provided by AI.

A year ago, much of the market was captivated by the promise of the technology, rather than its implementation. Now, AI is the most important driver of the streamlining and automation of internal agency processes.

Contractors must be prepared to answer specific questions as they look down the road: Where can AI improve delivery of citizen services? Where can it support the warfighter? Where can it help increase productivity with a leaner workforce? Where can it be deployed without creating a larger compliance or security problem?

The immediacy of the opportunity is clear when you look at the recent initiatives this administration has prioritized.

GSA launched a “million hours challenge” for its internal AI tool after the agency lost nearly 40% of its workforce. At VA, officials told lawmakers that AI-assisted claims support helped cut average processing time by 42%, from 141 days to 81 days. Across the public sector, agencies reported 3,611 AI use cases in 2025, up 105% from the year before. The work is still getting done, but differently, with more automation than before.

At the same time, acquisition policy is pushing agencies to prioritize commercial technology above bespoke development projects. These initiatives completely upend the traditional go-to-market model for government contractors.

Agencies and decision-makers are much more comfortable adopting commercial software, creating a new era for how agencies develop and manage technology.

For example, OMB’s April 2026 commercial-buying memo says that more than two-thirds of fiscal 2024 federal contract spending was for non-commercial products and services, including more than $130 billion in non-commercial common services such as IT, telecom, professional support, and facilities operations.

Now, agencies have been told to report covered non-commercial awards and justify why commercial solutions don’t work for any awards over $10 million.

Under the hood, the machinery of buying is also advancing. GSA’s Office of Centralized Acquisition Services says agencies can use its centralized model to expand contracting capacity during periods of limited staffing, while piloting AI and automation to accelerate procurement.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul is built around the same idea. OMB says the rewrite will use plain-language deviation text, streamline the regulation back to its statutory base, and strip most non-statutory requirements out of Part 12 in order to lower transaction costs, increase competition, and make it easier for buyers to negotiate better deals.

Yes, a recognizable name still matters. Scale still matters. Past performance still matters. But they no longer carry the same weight on their own, especially without clear metrics that prove return on investment.

Those three trends — the proliferation of AI, the growing need to specifically demonstrate impact, and the commercial-first mentality — will define this era of procurement. Government is relying more heavily on commercial partners to close capacity gaps, accelerate modernization, and keep delivery moving.

The companies that succeed will be the ones that make it easier for the government to move with speed and confidence, using off-the-shelf technology that can prove its own worth.

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Accenture Federal, OpenAI partner to move agencies from AI pilots to production

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 14 May 2026 14:34:38 -0400

Accenture's U.S. federal subsidiary and OpenAI have launched a strategic partnership to work with agencies that are ready to move from artificial intelligence pilots to enterprise applications led by agentic AI capabilities.

Ron Ash, CEO of Accenture Federal Services, said many agencies have launched pilots to prove out use cases and then stumble because they cannot find a way to move into production.

The partnership with OpenAI aims to short-circuit that problem, Ash told WT.

“What we are committing to is deploying mission-ready applications that can go into production and change the way the government operates,” Ash said.

The timing is no accident. OpenAI received a FedRAMP Moderate authorization in April and is working toward higher classification levels, clearing the path for deployments that were not previously possible at mission scale.

OpenAI will be at the center of Accenture's Forge, a hands-on development center where agencies can quickly build applications ready for enterprise deployment.

Ash described the Forge as a place where government leaders can see the technology rather than just hear about it — and increasingly, build with it themselves.

At a Forge event this week, AFS and OpenAI engineers worked with government customers on three applications that they built from scratch.

One focus is on so-called mega-events such as the America 250 celebrations and this year's World Cup, as well as the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The application for this use case is designed to allow international visitors to get customs and immigration information in one place, rather than multiple agencies.

“We’re going to build a cross-agency data collaboration platform that can be used to ask questions instead of going to USCIS and CBP and having to figure out all of these things,” Ash said, speaking ahead of the Forge event. “You can go to one platform to be able to do that and OpenAI allows that to happen.”

The partnership pairs OpenAI's frontier models with AFS's knowledge of agency data, systems and workflows.

Joe Larson, OpenAI's vice president for government, said that combination is what makes the collaboration distinctive.

"We build the frontier AI capabilities, but we need to partner with organizations that actually operationalize technology securely and responsibly," Larson said. "Together we're working to close the gap between AI's potential and its real-world impact."

One key design principle of the partnership is what AFS calls "human in the lead" — a step beyond the more common "human in the loop" framing.

Rather than simply having a human available to intervene, the model requires human approval at each phase before agentic workflows advance.

AFS has built a system for the Energy Department that uses 22 AI agents to scan global data in search of rare earth mineral deposits in the U.S. The agents find the research and synthesize it, but a human scientist reviews and validates everything.

"The human is the one saying, we are now done with this phase, now we're moving to the next," Ash said. "They're in the lead."

AFS plans to extend OpenAI access across its 15,000-person workforce, with more than 3,000 engineers gaining access to OpenAI's Codex model for software development.

Ash said the goal is to give employees capabilities they could not have had before — building prototypes and solutions on the fly while working with clients.

"We're not just doing it for our clients, we're doing it to ourselves," Ash said.

Both companies have other partnerships and will continue to work with others, but this pairing is not based on a project-by-project approach.

“We have other partnerships,” Larson said. “Accenture brings a really comprehensive and specialized bench of experts that are first rate in understanding how to apply our models in ways that are novel and interesting to us as a company.”

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By Light wins $298M DISA secure browser recompete

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 14 May 2026 13:29:00 -0400

By Light Professional IT Services has won a potential five-year, $298.1 million contract to continue its role supporting cloud-based internet isolation infrastructure for the Defense Department.

Under the CBII concept, browser rendering happens in an isolated cloud computing environment instead of the end-user device. The idea is to ensure users only see safe visual streams of websites and are not exposed to any malicious code or content.

The Defense Information Systems Agency awarded the recompete on Monday, according to a Sam.gov notice.

DISA has tasked By Light to provide a reseller-provided managed service for Menlo Security’s Cloud Browser product, which has a user base of 3.2 million across the entire Defense Department.

The new contract’s scope of offerings extends beyond just licenses for the product. By Light will also be responsible for operating, integrating, maintaining and supporting the product within DISA’s security stack.

By Light originally started the work under an Other Transaction Authority project in 2019 that also involved Sealing Technologies, now a subsidiary of Parsons Corp.

By Light secured the production award in 2020 and has been obligated $306 million in order volume since then, according to GovTribe data.

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Air Force Research Laboratory brings $10B vehicle back from the dead

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 14 May 2026 13:27:37 -0400

The Air Force Research Laboratory has resurrected a potential $10 billion science and technology contract vehicle exactly one month after telling industry it cancelled the effort.

At that time in January, AFRL said it pulled the plug on its AMAC multiple-award contract to reassess the requirements and acquisition strategy. AFRL told industry this roughly eight weeks after proposals were due.

In reading the new draft solicitation posted Wednesday, AFRL is maintaining the AMAC vehicle’s basic vision and structure as covering a wide range of efforts in unclassified research-and-development.

AFRL is running this procurement on behalf of both the Air Force and Space Force, which are seeking to hire a pool of companies that can characterize new technologies and systems concepts.

Contractors will also be tasked with enabling transitions of new science and tech capabilities via prototyping or other methods to ensure those solutions are fielded quickly.

AFRL’s key technology areas of interest include the air domain, space domain, cybersecurity and electronic warfare, solutions that cut across multiple domains, and basic research.

The contract’s core work areas break out as follows:

Basic and applied research
Data science and analytics
Technology development
Digital architecture, via model-based systems engineering
Modeling and simulation
Manufacturing and fabrication
Experimentation and testbed development
Integration and demonstration
Technology transition to military capabilities

Responses to the draft request for proposals are due by 4 p.m. Eastern time on June 15.

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DOD builds framework for faster development and deployment of cruise missiles

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 13 May 2026 14:48:55 -0400

The Defense Department has signed new agreements with four companies to get approximately lower-cost cruise missiles into the field over the next three years.

DOD announced Wednesday that Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos and Zone 5 are participating in the Low-Cost Containerized Missiles program with the department calling all of them “new entrants and commercial innovators.”

Initial testing and experimentation will begin this spring with production eyed to start in 2027.

A separate agreement has been signed with Castelion to test and validate the Blackbeard missile. Once the test phase is completed, DOD plans to order at least 500 missiles annually under a two-year base contract that has three individual option years.

DOD's driving idea behind the contracts is to rapidly field more missiles.

“In concert with establishing a clear demand signal, these framework agreements commit American industry to on-time, on-cost delivery and investment in (research-and-development) and facilities,” said Emil Michael, defense undersecretary for research and engineering.

DOD wants to expand the munitions industrial base and shows a commitment to “scalable pathways that can surge when needed,” the department said.

The agreements are part of DOD’s Acquisition Transformation Strategy to buy and field systems faster.

“We are moving beyond traditional prime contractors to expand our industrial base, accelerating testing timelines, and sending a clear, long-term demand signal to innovative new entrants,” said Michael Duffey, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment.

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Navy awards $349M unmanned maritime support contract

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 13 May 2026 13:25:40 -0400

The Navy has awarded nine companies positions on an eight-year, $349.4 million contract for broad systems engineering and technical services focused on unmanned maritime systems.

The Navy received 21 offers for the Unmanned Maritime Systems Support contract and awardees will compete for task orders to carry out the work, the Pentagon said in its Monday awards digest.

Awardees include:

Abbott On Call (newcomer)
Astrion (incumbent)
HII (incumbent)
ManTech (incumbent)
Naval Systems Inc. (newcomer)
Peraton (incumbent)
Prescient Edge (newcomer)
Science Applications International Corp. (incumbent)
Serco Group’s North American subsidiary (incumbent)

The Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific set up the contract to cover a wide variety of services such as specification and design, fabrication, development, integration, assembly, installation, test, evaluation, demonstration, fielding, operations, maintenance, training, logistics, documentation, administration, configuration management, and program management.

Solicitation documents from November outline how NIWC Pacific leaders are also using this contract as part of its efforts to drive development and maturation of unmanned vehicle products, plus integration and fielding of supporting technologies.

The Navy awarded the current contract in 2021 and has obligated $157 million in task order volume to-date, according to GovTribe data.

Peraton and Astrion are the largest incumbents at 43% and 28%, respectively. Astrion inherited its incumbency in 2023 following the combination of ERC and Oasis Systems, the latter of which won the contract position.

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Golden Dome's key questions to determine its success

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 13 May 2026 13:21:44 -0400

Layers upon layers is one way to describe Golden Dome, the U.S. military’s ambitious vision for building a missile defense system for protecting the U.S. before adversarial weapons launch or during their flight.

But at its essence, Golden Dome is the next iteration of how the U.S. uses a variety of technologies on the ground and in space as missile threats evolve.

How the Pentagon prioritizes its spending plans will determine whether Golden Dome lives up to the billing or not, in light of the Congressional Budget Office’s new estimate that the system will cost $1.2 trillion. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, who leads the program, told House lawmakers in April that space-based interceptors may end up being too expensive.

Space-based interceptors do garner much of the attention, but software and sensors will move data between operators responsible for making Golden Dome work. President Trump wants the system operational by 2029.

In light of the cost projections and aggressive timeline, what will determine whether Golden Dome is a success or not?

John Plumb, a former assistant defense secretary for space policy, told a WT Power Breakfast audience on Friday that the idea of space-based interceptors hitting a target in space is a “narrow definition of what success is here.”

Congress could cut that element out of Golden Dome in the future, but Plumb pointed out that there are many more elements to the system.

“It’s just like anything else in defense. You don't say, ‘OK, now I have missile defense and it's a success and I'm good,’” said Plumb, now head of strategy at K2 Space. “You're constantly making it better you're constantly iterating the threat evolves.

“What I think makes it a success is, does it increase my deterrence? Does it decrease the possibility of conflict? That is, to me, the number one success,” Plumb added at the event in Reston, Virginia.

Factor number two points to the money going into Golden Dome and affordability of everything, Plumb said. CBO’s forecast suggests that there may be some future conversations between executive and legislative branch leaders on that front.

“But I think just getting the sensor layers right and getting the data routing right would be a massive success and be really useful for the joint force in any front, not just on homeland defense, not just in the Indo-Pacific, but globally,” Plumb said.

Plumb believes the routing of data is going to move forward no matter what, given how modern warfare is so dependent on the freedom of data movement between miliary operators.

Ground-based radars will be a significant portion there, inclusive of how sensors get meshed together to help identify the best shooter to mitigate the missile threat.

“Then if you want to get really interested, then the question is, can you also do battle damage assessment with your sensor network to say ‘I got those three, I missed that one, I need to shoot at it again,’” Plumb said. “That is continuing to combine the sensors from the ground and from space with the interceptors.”

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Anduril hauls in $5B for Series H round

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 13 May 2026 13:14:55 -0400

Anduril, a poster child for the small group of defense technology unicorns, has hauled in $5 billion via a Series H capital raise to support continued investments in manufacturing capacity and research-and-development efforts.

Brian Schimpf, chief executive of Anduril, announced the round’s closure Wednesday and said the nine-year-old autonomous tech specialist doubled its annual revenue to $2.2 billion in 2025.

The company also “nearly doubled our workforce, won and delivered on our first international program of record to the Royal Australian Navy, and demonstrated autonomous flight on an Air Force unmanned combat aircraft program, among many other milestones,” Schimpf wrote in his letter to investors. “We transitioned more than double the number of developmental systems into production at scale than we had previously.”

Anduril’s newest financing round values the company at a touted $61 billion, which is double the $30.5 billion valuation from the $2.5 billion Series G round closed in June.

Investors and other defense market observers widely expect Anduril to undertake an initial public offering at some point. Palmer Luckey, who co-founded Anduril in 2017, told CNBC in June that an eventual IPO is certain and necessary for the company to compete for larger contracts.

The $1 billion valuation figure is a primary benchmark investors use to determine a defense tech company’s labeling as a unicorn. Anduril, Chaos Industries, Hadrian, Saronic and Shield AI are examples of members belonging to this group.

Anduril started out with a focus on software and has gradually pushed further into hardware manufacturing in recent years, but with software still as the centerpiece of the physical product.

In March, Anduril both announced its acquisition of space-based data provider ExoAnalytic Solutions and unveiled a timeline for starting production of a robot drone wingman offering for the Air Force.

Then in April, Space Force selected Anduril as one of a dozen companies to develop space-based interceptors for the future Golden Dome missile defense system.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced an agreement with Anduril and three other companies to buy roughly 10,000 lower-cost hypersonic missiles over the next three years.

Also this year, Anduril signed a $20 billion enterprise agreement with the Army to consolidate all existing contracts with the company into a single vehicle.

Below is a Bloomberg TV interview conducted Wednesday with Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf.

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Leidos lands $2.7B Dark Eagle production contract

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 13 May 2026 13:08:50 -0400

The Defense Department has shifted the Dark Eagle long-range hypersonic weapon to a full-production contract with Leidos at a $2.7 billion ceiling, following years of prototype work on the system.

Dark Eagle is a joint research-and-development effort for the Army and Navy, while DOD says the capability has achieved a significant leap.

"This acquisition was different from a typical contract because it was a joint effort between the Army and Navy, and [it] combined both research and development and production under a single effort," Paul Daugherty, a contracting officer with the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, said in a release.

The new contract unifies the Thermal Protection Shield and Common Hypersonic Glide Body programs. The idea is to streamline development and accelerate delivery to warfighters.

Leidos will work with DOD to reduce production timelines and support a reliable supply of components to meet operational demands. The company’s offerings in hypersonics include guidance systems, sensor technologies and precision munitions integration.

“This contract is a major step forward in delivering hypersonic capabilities to the warfighter at speed,” Leidos Defense President Cindy Gruensfelder. “Our team is committed to supporting the Army and Navy in producing this critical operational capability.”

The new contract is the first production award for the common hypersonic glide body program and moves from an other transaction authority mechanism to a contract under the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the Army said.

"This development and production contract provides the Army and Navy the ability to achieve optimized pricing across base and option years, allowing the government to buy to budget while maximizing every taxpayer dollar," said Vince Dickens, Army command branch chief of hypersonic missile and counter-unmanned aerial systems.

Because the production contract was not competed, the DOD acquisition team worked with the Defense Contract Management Agency and Defense Contract Audit Agency to determine fair and reasonable pricing.

"The close partnership across contracting, pricing and stakeholders was critical to delivering a successful outcome for the warfighter,” Dicken said.

Leidos, through its Dynetics subsidiary, has worked on Thermal Protection Shield program since 2021 and the Common Hypersonic Glide Body program since 2019.

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Air Force taps Salesforce’s Army contract for personnel modernization work

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 13 May 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Salesforce has signed a new $72 million enterprise license agreement with the Air Force to modernize personnel management and other functions using artificial intelligence.

This is part of a $5.6 billion contract Salesforce and the Army inked in January. The idea was that the vehicle would be open to all of the Defense Department.

The agreement with the Air Force is meant to enhance situational awareness and unify business functions like personnel management, Salesforce said Wednesday.

The Air Force will use Salesforce's Missionforce National Security offering, which includes artificial intelligence tools.

“Leveraging enterprise-wide contract vehicles accelerates our procurement timelines, optimizes resource allocation, and ensures our Airmen and Guardians are equipped with the agile technology necessary for today's dynamic mission environments," said Keith Hardiman, deputy chief information officer for the Air Force.

The Air Force is using the Salesforce agreement to consolidate contracts, reduce the number of contract actions and achieve volume-based savings.

The agreement also aims to help the Air Force connect its digital infrastructure to gain a view across personnel recruiting and logistics.

The Air Force will also be able to pilot implementation of Salesforce’s Agentforce, an agentic AI solution, which is intended to enable automation of workflows and support decision-making at the edge.

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Applied Research Associates wins $115M Navy computing contract

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:43:56 -0400

Applied Research Associates has won a one-year, $111.5 million contract to work with the Naval Research Laboratory on research-and-development efforts in high-performance computing.

NRL received three bids for the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, the Pentagon said in its Friday awards digest.

Solicitation documents from March 2024 describe how NRL sought to hire an industry partner to help its Center for High Performance Computing carry out research in the management, use and application of high-performance networks. This includes work to develop next-generation network protocols.

ARA will be responsible for providing engineering, technical and transition support services to aid in how NRL carries out its requirements and performance analysis missions. The company will also collaborate with NRL to develop new cryptographic capabilities.

NRL is particularly interested in utilizing cryptographic devices of the commercial and Type 1 categories, the latter of which refers to devices or systems certified by the National Security Agency for use in securing classified government information.

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Star Catcher closes $65M Series A round for space grid strategy

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:40:25 -0400

Star Catcher, a startup pushing to develop a power grid in space, has fetched $65 million in Series A capital ahead of an initial demonstration of optical power beaming technology planned for later this year.

Founded less than two years ago, Star Catcher is also working toward a second orbital mission as part of its goal to build out technology that delivers on-demand electricity to satellites and other spacecraft.

Optical power beaming refers to the technique of wirelessly transferring electricity over long distances by using laser light, which converts back into electricity at a receiver.

B Capital, Cerberus Capital Management’s venture arm and Shield Capital co-led the round announced Tuesday. GreatPoint Ventures, Helena, Oceans Ventures and MVP Ventures also participated in the round.

“This investment underscores the conviction that orbital infrastructure is now as fundamental as terrestrial infrastructure,” Andrew Rush, co-founder and CEO of Star Catcher, said in a release. “Every major application driving the space economy — connectivity, computing, security, sensing — is power-limited today.”

Star Catcher is also adding three new members to its board of directors as part of the Series A round:

John “Jay” Raymond, the retired Space Force chief and now senior managing director at Cerberus
Jeff Johnson, a general partner and global head of energy at B Capital
David Rothzeid, a principal at Shield Capital

Star Catcher is also using the investment to pursue what it calls “deeper engagement with U.S. national security customers,” in addition to continued commercial expansion efforts.

The company’s portfolio includes seven power purchase agreements and a $1.25 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase II contract with the Air Force’s AFWERX acceleration arm.

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GovCon market grew in 2025, but challenges are mounting

Nick Wakeman — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:34:35 -0400

The government market's double-digit growth in 2025 cannot mask significant challenges contractors face, according to the latest edition of Deltek’s annual Clarity report.

Contractors reported 15% growth on average and acknowledged that costs, compliance demands and workforce constraints have intensified.

Profit margins are under pressure with labor costs, overhead expenses, and subcontractor and vendor prices increasing.

Speed is now a competitive requirement. But cybersecurity, compliance and pricing defensibility are also rising quickly.

The report’s bottom line is that to be successful contractors need to focus on moving faster without losing control and executing in a more scrutinized environment.

For the Clarity report, Deltek surveyed 917 contractors between Jan. 12 and 26. Deltek asked 198 questions across multiple business functions such as finance, artificial intelligence, project management and business development.

Some of the key trends identified in the Clarity report include the increasing use of AI, cybersecurity as a competitive differentiator, and talent being the biggest constraint.

AI is pervasive across the market with 94% of contractors using AI for one or more business functions. On the downside, only 5% report fully developed AI governance.

Most companies are piloting (37%) and scaling (38%) AI technologies. Significantly, 45% report that the return on investment on AI use is unclear.

Concerns voiced about AI include data privacy risks (37%), inaccurate/unreliable forecasts (29%) and difficulty validating AI insights (26%).

Respondents said that they use AI predominantly for cybersecurity and IT (56%), and risk management (47%).

Contractors see cybersecurity as a gatekeeper for opportunities because firms that cannot meet security requirements will not be allowed to bid.

For example, 59% of respondents said that compliance with Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification requirements will apply to their companies.

Fifty-eight percent said they will need Level 2 certification, which requires a third-party certification. CMMC only applies to defense contracts currently.

While respondents expect compliance costs to hold steady or rise, they said that talent will be the biggest cost driver companies face. Attracting and retaining talent are primary concerns for the next 12 months, respondents said.

In this area as well, AI will play a significant role with 98% of human capital management respondents expecting to use AI to streamline onboarding and new hire processes. They also expect to automate many administrative tasks.

Now in its 17th year, the Clarity report gives contractors a long-term look at how the market is evolving.

This edition's takeaway is that the industry is at an inflection point. Revenue appears strong, but the operational and compliance pressures are building.

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Golden Dome plan would cost $1.2 trillion, CBO finds

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:08:27 -0400

The Golden Dome missile-defense system would cost $1.2 trillion to build out, far more than the White House has budgeted, according to a new estimate by Congressional researchers.

The figure is roughly double the Congressional Budget Office’s initial assessment of Golden Dome, based on the expansive yet vague executive order issued in the busy first week of the second Trump administration. It’s nearly seven times larger than President Trump’s original promise to build it for $175 billion.

And it’s fifteen times larger than the $79 billion the administration plans to spend in the Golden Dome for America account over the next five years, which excludes other-related missile defense funding.

“The system would provide significantly expanded defensive capabilities but would not be impenetrable, particularly against large-scale attacks from peer adversaries,” the office said in an emailed statement. “CBO’s estimate is substantially higher than publicly cited administration figures, which may reflect differences in scope, time frame, and assumptions.”

In the last two months, Golden Dome’s budget has swelled by $10 billion. And the program’s leader has conceded that space-based interceptors, a cornerstone of the proposed missile shield, may be too costly to build.

The bulk of the funds—about $730 billion—would purchase only enough space-based interceptors to destroy about 10 incoming ballistic missiles.

The new CBO assessment was requested by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon.

The $1.2 trillion estimate is not far off from a projection published by Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst and space expert with AEI. In September, Harrison wrote that roughly $1 trillion over two decades could buy enough space-based interceptors to take out five missiles in the boost phase, 50 hypersonic weapons in the glide phase, and 50 warheads in midcourse. The sum would also purchase nearly 150 missile-warning and -tracking satellites, 10 Ground-Based Midcourse Defense battalions, 10 Patriot batteries, eight THAAD batteries, and two Aegis Ashore sites.

But the administration’s $185 billion budget won’t buy anywhere close to that, Harrison said.

“The fact that CBO’s estimate is almost an order of magnitude higher than what the administration says it will cost can only mean one thing: the administration is not actually building what the executive order described,” he said. “The CBO analysis and my previous analysis both demonstrate that the homeland missile defense you can buy for $185 billion is an incremental improvement over what we have today but not an impenetrable shield that will forever end the missile threat to the United States.”

The Trump administration has leaned heavily on funds outside the baseline defense budget to make Golden Dome a reality. Last year, the Pentagon netted $24 billion in reconciliation funds for the program. For the 2027 defense budget, the administration requested more than $17 billion from the same funding source and just $400 million from the annual Pentagon budget.

Additional reconciliation funds are not guaranteed, but the administration has projected future support in the baseline budget — the Pentagon plans to request an estimated $14.7 billion in the 2028 budget and projects it to rise to $16 billion by 2031, according to the American Enterprise Institute data.

Last year’s Golden Dome executive order called for fielding the “development and deployment” of space-based interceptors that can hit a missile within minutes of its initial launch. But physics shows that weaving a defensive web to stop any number of missiles from anywhere would require tens or hundreds of thousands of satellites.

Space interceptors, as the CBO’s estimate points out, are the most expensive component. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, the program’s leader, told lawmakers last month that he’s focused on staying within the budget and said, “If we cannot do it affordabl[ly], we will not go into production” on boost-phase space-based interceptors.

In light of the new estimate, Harrison said, Congress should have serious doubts about prioritizing and funding space-based interceptors instead of focusing on more attainable homeland security defenses.

“One of the lingering questions for Congress is: why are we still funding [space-based interceptor] development? Prototyping the system and maturing the technology will not prove or disprove its ability to scale with the threat—scalability is a matter of orbital mechanics, and the prototyping effort does nothing to change that,” Harrison said. “SBIs do not scale. We are throwing away billions of dollars on a system with no future, when that money could instead be used to buy more of the ground-based interceptors and drone defenses we are in desperate need of today that do scale with threats.”

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The Army wants to reinvent how it feeds soldiers in the field

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 11 May 2026 15:41:41 -0400

The Army wants to reinvent the field ration and is looking to the alternative protein industry for ideas.

In a source sought notice posted Monday, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command is asking for information on alternative proteins that can have a long shelf-life and be palatable.

The Army has several objectives including enhancing food supply chain resilience, enabling biomanufacturing foodstuffs in combat-forward environments, and providing tailored, high-quality nutrition.

The notice mentions specific technologies the Army is interested in such as “fermentation, precision fermentation, or other novel biomanufacturing methods.” One goal is lightweight and nutrient-dense rations that can lower logistical burdens and physical payload.

The Army also wants to hear from respondents who can conduct consumer research such as focus groups, sensory panels, and field testing to evaluate acceptability and consumption within a military population.

For all the talk in the notice about alternative proteins and “meat-alternative products,” the Army is not interested in laboratory-grown meats or insect protein.

The notice mentions that the Army wants ideas for biomanufacturing food in forward-deployed areas, which would shorten the supply chain.

Domestic sourcing is a requirement and must comply with the Berry Amendment, which requires that the Defense Department give preference to U.S.-made products. For forward-deployed biomanufacturing, the ingredients would need to be sourced from the U.S.

The Army has a very tight turnaround time for concept papers, which are due Friday.

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Army extends MAPS deadline on same day proposals were due

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:23:39 -0400

The Army has extended the proposal deadline for its troubled, but massive professional services contract at the last minute.

Proposals were due May 8. But that same day, the Army pushed out the due date until May 20 for the $50 billion Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services vehicle.

The 10-year MAPS vehicle has been hit with a growing number of bid protests that share common complaints about perceived lack of transparency, inadequate responses to industry questions and concerns around how documentation around past performance would be handled.

The Army has also amended parts of the solicitation. Most appear to be clarifications to instructions and definitions, but there are some changes regarding when signatures are needed and when bidders can receive an exception.

The Army also has written out answers to all of the 2,560 questions submitted by industry, which has been a sticking point for bidders. But one source has questioned the value of many of the answers.

In announcing the extension, the Army said companies are not required to resubmit their bids if they already turned one in.

But industry sources indicate that many companies will need to resubmit and there is frustration that the proposal deadline was extended on such short notice.

“A lot of companies were up all night getting proposals ready, just to find out with the changes, and the extension, we’ll have to do it again,” one said.

At the very least, companies will need to map their amendments to their proposals to confirm that they are in compliance.

Meanwhile, more companies have filed protests at the Government Accountability Office. Seven new companies have filed protests, and the first two protesters have submitted supplemental filings supporting their protests.

While the protests do not trigger a delay in proposals, the Army cannot make award decisions while the protests are pending.

Nine companies have filed protests so far against the MAPS solicitation:

GovCIO
Inserso Corp.
Intelligence Consulting Enterprise Solutions
ICF
The Jaaw Group
MetroStar Systems
ProVista Consulting
QinetiQ US
TechSur-Guidehouse joint venture

MetroStar and Intelligence Consulting Enterprise Solutions were the first companies to file protests.

The Government Accountability Office has the option of bundling all the protests together into a single decision. But even as separate cases, the agency is due to rule on all of them by mid-August.

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Cowboy Space, Darkhive detail their Series B rounds

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:12:14 -0400

Cowboy Space Corp.

This company pushing to make data centers in space a reality has collected $275 million in Series B capital to support satellite and rocket development efforts.

Cowboy was founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt, a co-founder of Robinhood Markets, to originally focus on building satellites that could deliver space-based solar energy to Earth. The company has gradually added launch rockets to its strategy with an emphasis on delivering artificial intelligence compute in-orbit.

Later this year, Cowboy plans to launch its first satellite with the goal of showing how power can be beamed from space to Earth. Cowboy is also working with NVIDIA to deploy a data center module that the companies see as enabling AI infrastructure operations in low-Earth orbit.

As Cowboy sees the world, terrestrial capacity is being strained by AI demand and new high-performance computing capabilities are needed to overcome that challenge. The company also designed its upper stage rocket and data center payload as a single vehicle.

Index Ventures led the Series B round, which values Cowboy Space at $2 billion. Science Applications International Corp., IVP and Blossom Capital are new investors entering the fold. Existing investors that participated include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Construct Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Interlagos and Baiju Bhatt.

Darkhive

This aerospace and defense technology company has fetched $30 million in Series B capital to accelerate production and delivery of its products, which include drones and software for use in military operations.

Darkhive was founded in 2021 by a group of Special Operations Command veterans to design software-defined hardware that can be quickly built and adopted by military operators.

In April, Darkhive was selected for a $49.7 million contract under the Defense Department’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program for quick fielding and scaling of new tech. This is the largest award in APFTI’s history, according to Darkhive.

Darkhive also touts a portfolio of programs with the Air Force and that service branch’s Research Laboratory, plus the Defense Innovation Unit and office of the Pentagon’s undersecretary for research and engineering.

RTX Corp.’s venture capital arm led the Series B round and also participated in Darkhive’s $21 million Series A round back in 2024, which was led by Ten Eleven Ventures. Autonomy and sensing is one of RTX Ventures’ six key focus areas for investing in young technology companies.

Draper Associates and Bison Capital have joined as new investors in Darkhive. Returning investors include Ten Eleven, Crosslink Capital, Alamo Angels, and Stellar Ventures.

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US tech official calls for ‘transformational’ use of AI in scientific discovery

Edward Graham — Mon, 11 May 2026 12:00:00 -0400

The Trump administration sees greater incorporation of artificial intelligence capabilities into the scientific research space as critical for continued U.S. technology leadership, a White House official said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ethan Klein said a major focus of this administration “is having better integration and tie-in across the scientific development piece, all the way through tech development, testing, prototyping and scale up.”

Klein said greater adoption of emerging capabilities like agentic AI — autonomous systems capable of executing specific tasks with minimal human oversight — will have a profound impact on scientific research. A Market Connections survey of more than 200 technology executives across government that was released on Tuesday found that 53% of respondents said their agencies were already exploring uses of agentic AI or were planning pilots of the technology.

“Across a broad swath of applications, but specifically for scientific discovery, I think agentic AI will be transformational,” said Klein, who also serves as an associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Greater use of these capabilities, he said, would help to expand and enhance data collection and transform the types of experiments that can be conducted by researchers.

“I think that if we're able to actually deploy these agentic AI … agents across those workflows, they're going to see a great amount of scientific efficiency,” Klein added. "And that's incredibly important, because that underpins every one of these technologies that we're looking to develop.”

The Trump administration has already taken some steps to enhance nationwide research efforts by leveraging AI. The largest of these is the Genesis Mission, which was launched in November 2025 and seeks to further harness AI for scientific advancement.

Klein said the initiative will help bring “a bit of that muscle [when it comes to] incorporating that into the workflows that we know are going to bring forth this new era of AI-enabled scientific discovery.”

Thursday’s panel, however, was held amid ongoing concerns about how the Trump administration’s push to scale back government operations through layoffs and reductions in force is impacting research efforts.

Just last month, President Donald Trump dismissed all 22 members of the independent advisory board overseeing the National Science Foundation, which supports nationwide science and engineering research. Critics have said the purge — which comes as NSF still lacks a permanent director — will harm continued U.S. scientific leadership.

Editor’s note: Market Connections is a business division of GovExec, the parent company of Nextgov/FCW.

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How Lyntris centers its tech on 'left of bang'

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 11 May 2026 09:00:00 -0400

Left of bang, or left of boom depending on which military professional or observer one speaks to, seems to be where many of the most difficult challenges facing operators take place.

Whereas the problems of the past mostly focused on the right side of those chains of events, or after the conflicts start.

“The hardest problems of warfare for most of human history were delivering weapons systems to targets, and today we can do that with relative ease,” Lyntris’ chief executive Brian Morrison told WT. “The harder problems (of today) have almost left in time. It’s identifying targets, correlating information about those targets, presenting information about those targets, coming up with a firing solution, and then launching.”

Enter Lyntris, a newly-formed defense technology company that designs its software and hardware offerings to cover the entire left side of the chain. Lynteris emerges following the combination of Accelint Holdings and Vitesse Systems announced Thursday.

Financial terms of the move were not disclosed, but Lyntris is touting an active presence across roughly 200 programs at the U.S. Defense Department and allied partners. Lyntris is owned by private equity firm Trive Capital.

As Morrison described it, the heritage Accelint and Vitesse businesses focused on different aspects of that left side.

Accelint centered on what he called the “make sense and act” part, which starts with work to identify what the threats are and then come up with a firing solution to mitigate them.

Vitesse was more about “sense and make sense,” which Morrison said involves how operators render the threats and firing solutions in a command-and-control system for making decisions.

“If you think of the connected battlespace as sense, make sense and act – We took a company that was ‘sense and make sense’ and combined it with a company that was ‘make sense and act,” Morrison said.

The combined company’s product portfolio covers areas such as mission systems, decision support, autonomy, command-and-control, sensing hardware, radio frequency technologies, thermal management, and power and subsystem integration.

Naturally, artificial intelligence is an underlying capability that feeds into all of those products.

Morrison said Lyntris and its heritage businesses have been involved in the defense AI landscape for close to 15 years and sought to focus on specific use cases, such as swarming autonomy. This involves how multiple autonomous vehicles operate collectively, but in a decentralized manner, to achieve complex tasks without needing constant human intervention.

As Lyntris and Morrison see the world, out-of-the-box and general purpose AI tools become less useful as they get closer to the edge.

“There are just realities that we have to think about when deploying AI in life or death situations, such as combat, that don't exist in commercial AI applications,” Morrison said. “Things like rules of engagement, levels of force, contested digital environments where you may be jammed or lose contact with a platform. The AI needs to be sophisticated enough to allow that platform to act in a truly autonomous way that distinguishes between blue forces (friendly) and red forces (the foe).”

Lyntris also enters the market amid a period where DOD is pushing for more rapid prototyping and fielding of technologies before they are 100%-ready, but sees iteration while in use as the way to get there.

The company has opted to center much of its strategy around being a merchant supplier to larger prime contractors. Morrison said Lyntris views that status as helping it work on tech development in those kinds of quicker cycles DOD wants.

“If we were to pursue a position of being solely a platform prime, we'd be forced to make tradeoffs about accepting suboptimal solutions,” Morrison said. “We resist the temptation to be vertically integrating at all opportunities.”

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WT 360: NextGov/FCW’s David DiMolfetta on CISA’s catchup, federal AI policy and offensive cyber

Ross Wilkers and David DiMolfetta — Mon, 11 May 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The federal government’s lead agency for domestic cybersecurity and infrastructure protection matters has only completed its first week of being fully back up and running after not being funded for 11 weeks.

David DiMolfetta, cyber reporter at NextGov/FCW, has covered how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has operated through a period that followed losses of nearly one-third of its workforce under this Trump administration.

David joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to lay out CISA’s path forward with funding in place, plus what the agency’s stakeholders in the private and public sectors should watch out for amid the catchup.

David then breaks down NextGov/FCW’s recent reporting on two major storylines on artificial intelligence policy coming out of the White House that has direct implications for industry.

The second half of their conversation is all about a deep dive article David put together on where industry fits, or may not fit, into the government’s offensive cyber approach.

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Peraton's sector president hires and more leadership moves across the market

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:46:09 -0400

Peraton

Two sector president hires and an internal promotion are afoot at this technology integrator, which former Science Applications International Corp. executive Bob Genter joined in February as chief operating officer.

Gabe Camarillo, the former Army undersecretary and more recently a KBR executive, has joined as president of Peraton’s defense sector and brings two decades of experience to the role.

As Army undersecretary, Camarillo led service-wide reform efforts in software acquisition and foreign military sales. He also oversaw the establishment of the Army’s first digital engineering policy.

While at KBR, Camarillo was senior vice president of the defense technology solutions business. His career also includes executive roles at SAIC.

Vishal Tuslian is now president of Peraton's health, state and local sector following 25 years of experience at other contractors in the market.

This sector works with federal health agencies, state governments and local community organizations.

Tuslian most recently worked as president and chief operating officer at Reli Group. Prior to that, he spent a decade at Science Applications International Corp. and is a former senior vice president there.

In addition, Peraton has promoted Danny Valladares to chief technology officer for its national security business. Valladares, who announced his new role in a LinkedIn post, has been with Peraton and its heritage businesses for close to a decade.

Appian

Ali Mohammed has joined the process automation software developer as chief architect for its public sector team, which is a newly-created role for the former Army tech leader.

Mohammed most recently served in the title of assistant capability program executive and chief technology officer for the Army’s CPE ES2 organization. He is a 23-year veteran of government and private sector roles.

Jason Adolf, vice president of Appian’s global public sector vertical, announced the hire of Mohammed on LinkedIn and cited his technical and functional domain experience.

Cybersec Investments

Stacy Bostjanick, the Pentagon’s former chief of defense industrial base security, has joined this computer and network security company as vice president of government services strategy.

Bostjanick will “lead the stand-up of our new division focused on delivering cybersecurity services directly to federal departments and agencies,” Fernando Machado, Cybersec managing partner, wrote in a LinkedIn post on her hire.

In her Defense Department role, Bostjanick led the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.

Enlightenment Capital

Rob Albritton has joined the government market investment firm as managing director for technology and innovation, a role he brings two decades of defense tech experience to.

Albritton will work with Enlightenment’s portfolio companies on their technology strategies and roadmaps, while also advising the firm on those items as well when looking at investments.

His career includes leadership roles at Tyto Athene, IBM, Octo, Mitre Corp. and NVIDIA. At Octo, he led the establishment of its oLabs organization and AI Center of Excellence in the years leading up to its sale to IBM in 2023.

FalconTek

Ricky Schultz has joined the technical and professional services provider as vice president of client development, a role he brings 14 years of experience to.

Schultz will lead FalconTek’s workforce solutions division with responsibility for client acquisition, growing partnerships and shaping the go-to-market strategy.

Prior to FalconTek, Schultz spent a decade at Aerotek and his most recent role there was practice lead. FalconTek is a service-disabled/veteran-owned small business.

Groundswell

Greg Worley, a former commandant of the Army Finance Corps, has joined the enterprise resource planning software integrator as vice president of intelligent automation in its defense business.

Groundswell announced the hire in a LinkedIn post and described his main task as leading the application of artificial intelligence and intelligent automation across federal financial management functions.

In that commandant role, Worley led a 6,100-person team with responsibility for financial operations and resource management.

Lockheed Martin

Orlando “OJ” Sanchez Jr. will move up to president of the defense giant’s aeronautics segment on June 1 and succeed Greg Ulmer, who is retiring after three decades at Lockheed.

Lockheed Martin’s aeronautics portfolio is highlighted by the F-35 fighter jet program, while the segment employs 35,000 people and generates around $30 billion in annual revenue.

Sanchez joined Lockheed in 2014 following service as an Air Force officer and most recently led the company’s famed Skunk Works advanced development program. Ullmer has led the aeronautics segment for five years.

mPower

Diane Yarnell has joined the business transformation services provider as chief administrative officer after 25 years at GRSi and DLH Corp.

MPower's LinkedIn post on this hire cites her background as covering operations, scaling organizations and building the infrastructure to support growth.

GRSi was acquired in 2022 by DLH, where Yarnell most recently worked as president of health IT.

Niyam IT

Mohamed Elansary has joined the IT solutions provider as chief operating officer, a role he brings 25 years of experience to.

Elansary will work with Suman Biswas, Niyam’s founder and CEO, and other executive team members to shape the company’s strategy and vision. Elansary’s areas of responsibility include business development, capture, proposal and marketing functions.

Prior to Niyam, Elansary worked as chief growth officer at Concept Plus and was the CGO at Buchanan & Edwards before that.

Oddball

Agata Ciesielski and Drake Rose have joined the digital services company as vice presidents, roles they both bring government experience to.

As VP of architecture, Ciesielski will oversee Oddball’s labs organization in efforts to scale artificial intelligence solutions. A two-decade tech veteran, Ciesielski is a former AI lead for the Homeland Security Department and most recently was a senior solutions manager at C3 AI.

In the VP of transformation role, Rose will focus on how Oddball translates user needs in its product development work. Rose’s career includes stints as senior product manager and associate director, product lead in the Air Force’s Kessel Run organization.

Revolutional

Mike Cosgrave has joined the technology services provider as senior vice president and general manager for its national security and defense business unit, a role he brings two decades of leadership experience to.

Revolutional is the new name for what was Harmonia Holdings in the two decades prior to its rebrand. Madison Dearborn Partners acquired the company in the fall of 2024.

Cosgrave most recently was an operational executive at Aether Aerospace. His career also includes chief operating officer stints at Tria Federal and AceInfo.

SAP NS2

Gus Perna has joined the software conglomerate’s National Security Solutions subsidiary as executive vice president and strategic customer officer, a role he brings four decades of Army experience to.

The retired four-star general’s career is highlighted by his service as chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, the initiative for developing and distributing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Perna is also a former commanding general for the Army Materiel Command, a key logistics organization for the service branch.

Slingshot Aerospace

Markus Hartmann has joined the space data software provider as senior vice president of legal, a role he brings three decades of experience to.

Hartmann most recently worked as chief legal development and counsel at AI startup DragonGC and before that as general counsel and corporate secretary at Mister Car Wash.

Slingshot cited his work at DragonGC as aligning with efforts to build and scale AI for space operations.

Thales Defense & Security Inc.

Chris Forrest has joined this U.S. subsidiary of the aerospace and defense electronics company as chief financial officer, a role he brings three decades of experience to.

Forrest most recently worked as executive vice president and general manager of advanced robotics and mission solutions at QinetiQ US.

His career also includes leadership roles at Collins Aerospace and ARINC.

Westat

Sunitha Mathew has moved up to chief growth officer at the provider of research, data collection and analysis services after 24 years there.

Formerly a vice president, Mathew now works with other members of Westat’s executive team to shape and execute enterprise-wide growth initiatives. Her areas of responsibility include business development, marketing and communications.

Mathew succeeds Janet Rosenbaum, who has retired after eight years at Westat and four decades in industry overall.

Viasat

Shekar Ayyar and Jinhy Yoon have joined the board of directors at this satellite network operator, which announced their appointments as part of a cooperation agreement with one of its investors.

Carronade Capital Management is an activist investor that disclosed its 2.6% stake in Viasat in the summer of 2025, when the firm also recommended Viasat pursue either an initial public offering or spinoff of the defense and advanced technologies business.

Viasat’s board is conducting a strategic review to determine its path forward. Carronade has entered into customary standstill and voting agreements with Viasat, among other provisions.

Ayyar is chief executive of networking software company Arrcus, while Yoon is a 14-year veteran of PIMCO and a former Intelsat board member. SES acquired Intelsat in 2025 to create a larger satellite network operator.

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Army small business office pulls the plug on LinkedIn posts

Nick Wakeman — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:44:13 -0400

In an era when government leaders routinely use social media to make significant policy announcements, the decision by the Army Office of Small Business Programs to pull the plug on its LinkedIn feed seems counterintuitive.

The LinkedIn page for the office has 25,000 followers and the office has used it to make a wide range of announcements.

The page contains small business questions about CMMC, links to register for events and promotions of programs such as the mentor-protégé portal. All of that is just in the last two weeks.

But in a post Wednesday, the office said that it will no longer actively update its LinkedIn social media account.

“Moving forward, all announcements, resources, and opportunities will be posted exclusively on our official website,” the organization wrote.

Instead, the office directs small businesses to visit its website for the latest news and information.

Commenters expressed dismay.

“This doesn’t make sense as LinkedIn is the social connectivity for the [Defense Industrial Base. ALL the other [Department of Defense] offices have pages to follow and stay connected,” wrote one person.

To prove that point, directly below his comment, the Army Pathway for Innovation and Technology posted an invitation to follow their LinkedIn page for the latest news and updates on their programs.

The Army PIT manages Small Business Innovation Research grants, among other programs to get leading edge technologies into the hands of operators.

Other comments lamented the Army’s decision.

“How unfortunate for the American small business community,” wrote one.

“This is a big loss. This page brings a lot of awareness and information to the [small business] community,” another commenter said.

One commenter was very succinct in his comment, which likely reflects the thoughts of many. “Why?”

Why, indeed.

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Pentagon will ‘never again’ rely on a single AI provider, official says

Alexandra Kelley — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:41:00 -0400

Leadership at the Pentagon reiterated the agency’s commitment to diversifying its artificial intelligence service providers, with Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael taking the stage Thursday at an event in Washington, D.C., to stress that his department is never being “single-threaded with any one model.”

Speaking during the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo event, Michael said that the recent deals between eight leading AI developers and the Department of Defense are both a private sector statement of support for working with the government, as well as a step towards the Pentagon’s goal to diversify its tech stack with different providers.

“We were single-threaded on one vendor, one AI vendor at the Department of War, and to integrate into classified systems is not just putting your software on a public cloud and having it work,” Michael said, referring to his agency’s contract with Anthropic. “These are sophisticated, protective systems that take a lot of work to integrate on, so it wasn't like I could just turn on a few other models that easily. But never again we’ll be single-threaded with any one model.”

Michael continued to say that the new deals with Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Reflection, Oracle and SpaceX are “a statement by the biggest tech companies in the world who are involved in the AI space … and have them say, ‘We support the Department of War, we support the U.S. government, and we support the… armed services for all lawful use cases.”

Michael’s comments come in the midst of an ongoing dispute between Anthropic and the Department of Defense following the company’s refusal to have its technology used in operations involving autonomous weaponry and American surveillance.

The fallout of that dispute resulted in the Pentagon designating Anthropic a supply chain risk and the White House ordering agencies to begin removing the company's products from their tech stacks. A judge put a hold on those actions in late March pending ongoing litigation over the government’s actions.

The release of Anthropic’s advanced cybersecurity-focused model, Mythos Preview, changed the discussion. Access to Mythos and its advanced capabilities for detecting cybersecurity flaws is tantalizing for the U.S. government, prompting internal drafts of policy plans that would enable some agencies to use Anthropic’s cutting-edge model.

Michael said that the advent of Mythos signals the forthcoming evolution of cyber-capable AI models.

“The Mythos moment is really a cyber moment, and it's: ‘How is the U.S. government going to deal with cyber?’” Michael said.

Major tech companies are responding to Michael’s drive to diversify the Pentagon’s vendor portfolio. Rand Waldron, the vice president of the Global Government Sector for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, told Nextgov/FCW that Defense officials are asking cloud service providers like Oracle to prioritize interconnectedness in the effort to avoid vendor lock-in.

“From what I can see, the Department of War has some very savvy people who … don't want to go all in on one [model] because then six months later, they may need to go all in on another,” Waldron said.

He explained that there will likely be models that are more finely-tuned to particular use cases, such as code generation, data analytics, supply chain management or targeting in warfighter operations. One model from a single provider may not effectively serve each of these workflows.

“I don't believe that all those different use cases will end up being the exact same model at any given time,” Waldron said.

The Pentagon’s desire to expand the service offerings available for its workforce has precedent. Waldron said that DOD and the intelligence community have laid the foundation for a flexible approach to AI services acquisition, citing the creation of the Commercial Cloud Enterprise and Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contracting vehicles as the blueprints for future contracting structure.

“It's not like they're trying to replace Anthropic with another model provider,” Waldron said. “They want to replace Anthropic with four model providers.”

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HawkEye 360's public offering hauls in $416M

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 07 May 2026 16:09:40 -0400

HawkEye 360 hauled in $416 million through its initial public offering that launched Wednesday after the commercial satellite operator’s shares became available at $26 each to open.

That price is at the high end of the range HawkEye 360 first indicated in late April, when the company launched its roadshow to generate demand for the stock. Investors are originally being offered 16 million shares from the IPO’s underwriters, which have a 30-day option to purchase another 2.4 million shares.

Based on those figures, HawkEye 360 has achieved a valuation of around $2.4 billion through the availability of its stock in the public markets. Herndon, Virginia-headquartered HawkEye 360 is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “HAWK.”

Shares in HawkEye 360 closed up 31% to $34.03 in their first day of trading on Thursday and were as high as $34.49.

HawkEye 360’s decision to tap into the public markets is the newest in a string of IPOs from other space and defense technology companies, while investors and many other stakeholders wait a public filing from SpaceX.

Voyager Technologies, Firefly Aerospace, York Space Systems, Merlin Labs and AEVEX Corp. all achieved their goals for net proceeds and valuations in their respective IPOs over the past 12 months.

Of its $416 million in proceeds fetched, HawkEye 360 will use the majority to pay down debt and put toward working capital and other general corporate purposes.

HawkEye 360 is also using $15 million for a deferred payment related to its acquisition in December of Innovative Signal Analysis, which was closed in conjunction with a $150 million Series E capital raise.

The venture capital arms of Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Airbus and Raytheon have all been investors in HawkEye 360 at various points since the latter company’s inception in 2015.

Insight Partners, Razor's Edge and NightDragon also have been involved in HawkEye 360 over the years. Insight Partners led the $145 million Series D round in 2021 and participated in the $58 million Series D-1 in 2023.

Regulatory filings on the IPO indicate that Insight Partners will hold a 15% stake in HawkEye 360, while NightDragon will hold 9.7% and Razor's Edge will be at 5%.

HawkEye 360 has launched 30 satellites to-date and recorded $117.6 million in revenue on $2.6 million in net income for 2025, while U.S. government work represented 61% of that year’s sales mix. Total backlog as of Dec. 31 stood at $302.6 million.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Morgan Stanley are acting as lead book-running managers for HawkEye 360’s offering. RBC Capital Markets, Jefferies and BofA Securities are acting as additional book-running managers. Baird, Raymond James, and William Blair are acting as bookrunners. Drexel Hamilton is acting as co-manager.

CEO John Serafini and other members of HawkEye 360’s executive team rang the opening bell Thursday at the New York Stock Exchange.

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How IT vendors should approach the federal post-quantum cryptography market

Grier Eagan and Joshua Isler — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:26:57 -0400

With a deadline for federal agencies to implement their post-quantum cryptography (PQC) strategies by 2035, government cyber experts are actively working on charting their course in the post-quantum world to come.

Because some previously accepted cybersecurity solutions will be phased out as a part of this move toward a quantum world, there are opportunities for IT vendors.

This post-quantum focus was underscored in the recently released Cyber Strategy for America. Last fall, the Defense Department in a November 2025 memo to senior Pentagon leadership, combat commands, and field activity directors, laid the groundwork for migrating to PQC. This guideline memo built on the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act of 2022, which requires agencies to assess how they use potentially vulnerable cryptography and develop a PQC transition timeline.

Defense cybersecurity requirements

Under the defense memo, agencies will be required to receive cryptographic intake and deployment approval before testing, evaluating, piloting, investing in, using, or deploying “quantum resistant or quantum resilient technologies.”

DOD has banned the use of certain technologies in providing confidentiality, authenticity, or integrity in defense networks and communications, including:

Quantum key distribution (QKD)
Solutions combining QKD with other cryptographic key establishment
Quantum communications or networking
Non-local quantum randomness generation
Non-FIPS random number generation

DOD is also phasing out several previously accepted cybersecurity solutions. They will not test, pilot, use, or procure commercial solutions for these technologies:

Cryptographic pre-shared keys (PSK) solutions that are not provisioned through NSA Key Management Infrastructure for Type 1 devices. This will be phased out by December 31, 2030.

Symmetric key establishment protocols, symmetric key agreement protocols, and symmetric key distribution protocols. These will be phased out by December 31, 2031. DOD will not test, pilot, use, or procure commercial solutions of this type for quantum resistance.

Potential sales plays for IT vendors

With this understanding, what is the best way forward for IT vendors supporting the Defense Department?

Reach out to PQC migration leads. These leads are assessing the current state of cryptographic systems for PQC migration and are responsible for PQC acquisition requirements. These PQC leads will likely sit somewhere within component CIO offices.

Assist with inventory phase and get in early. PQC migration requires identification, inventory and reporting of all cryptographic systems across defense networks. These systems include national security systems (NSS), non-NSS, business systems, weapons systems, cloud computing capabilities, mobile devices, physical access control systems, Internet of Things, unmanned systems, operational technology and all other cryptographic-related technology.

Gathering an inventory of all cryptographic systems is a huge undertaking. It will likely require the assistance of technologies such as AI.

Pitch NIST algorithm-based solutions. Unlike the wider push for commercial solutions across the DOD, when it comes to PQC the department wants to help ensure any solution they are using is based on the approved NIST algorithms. To help ensure solutions use NIST-approved algorithms is the only way to sell PQC-related technologies to the DOD.

DARPA leads the way. PQC is very much in the research and development phase across the department, and DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, which has $282 million in funding for fiscal 2026, is currently the largest PQC-related program in the Defense Department.

The PQC initiative has opportunities not solely related to PQC solutions themselves, but any technology that can help support research, development, test, and evaluation efforts around the technology. This opens opportunities for solutions related to red teaming, AI, project management and other supportive technologies and solutions.

Quantum security efforts exist now. Quantum computing and sensing are an R&D play. Because the Defense Department intends to be fully quantum secure by 2031, opportunities related to quantum computing, quantum sensing and quantum networking are in preliminary R&D stages and will likely take longer to mature.

Speak directly to R&D program needs, it’s useful to know where some of the emphasis is being directed toward.

NSF National Quantum Virtual Laboratory. This program supports infrastructure and testbeds to develop quantum technologies in academic settings. Pilots include quantum frontiers, quantum information science (QIS) workforce education and training, and outreach activities.

Department of Energy (DOE) QIS Support Technology and Infrastructure: The QIS program includes facilities such as the Nanoscale Science Research Center, quantum computing and networking testbeds, foundries for superconducting qubits, and technologies producing isotopes for quantum systems.

Civilian quantum R&D plays are limited to these two agencies (NSF and DOE) and their initiatives. Potential sales avenues here would be restricted to solutions for learning content management, hardware (i.e., computing, sensing and networking), and data collection/analysis.

A 2031 deadline for PQC compliance across federal agencies is not as far off as it seems, given the scope of the inventory and analysis of cyber systems required of agencies. Combined with the fact that some previously accepted technologies will be eliminated, vendors need to start working on their PQC sales strategies now and look at these federal requirements as new opportunities to grow their business.

Grier Egan and Joshua Iseler are senior market intelligence analysts for immixGroup, a public sector business of Arrow Electronics. immixGroup delivers mission-driven results through innovative technology solutions for public sector IT. immixGroup can assist you in discovering the specifics surrounding PQC opportunities. We can help you find where agencies are focusing their attention and how to make the correct contact by reaching out to us here.

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