DARPA BAA: Seeking Information Innovation Office (I2O) Office-Wide revolutionary research ideas

Notice ID: HR001125S0002

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeks revolutionary research ideas for topics not being addressed by ongoing I2O programs or other published solicitations. Potential proposers are highly encouraged to review the current I2O programs (http://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/i2o) and solicitations (http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities) to avoid proposing efforts that duplicate existing activities or that are responsive to other published I2O solicitations. The Information Innovation Office (I2O) creates groundbreaking science and develops transformational capabilities in the informational and computational spheres to surprise adversaries and maintain enduring advantages for national security. I2O programs address elements of four key thrust areas:

• Proficient artificial intelligence (AI): seeks to (1) advance the state of the art of AI, (2) apply state-of-the-art AI to create new capabilities for national security, and (3) develop techniques to mitigate the threats posed by state-of-the-art AI systems. The predominant research challenge on the path to proficient AI is defining and creating trustworthy AI systems, including in the face of attacks by skilled, high-resource adversaries. In these efforts, I2O will leverage the AI Forward initiative to explore new directions for AI research that will result in safe, secure, and trustworthy systems for national security missions.  An area of particular interest is accelerating the pace of science and engineering for national security applications.
• Resilient, adaptable, and secure systems – aims to dramatically enhance the security and resilience of both new and legacy software, with a focus on practical and scalable approaches. The portfolio emphasizes formal methods development while leveraging AI and machine learning. Techniques and tools are provided to both the broad community (for example, as open-source software), the defense industrial base, and the Department of Defense (DOD).
• Advantage in cyber operations leverages and advances state-of-the-art AI and secure resilient system technologies to produce trustworthy cyber tools and capabilities that operate beyond the capacity or speed of humans. Efforts in this thrust anticipate adversary countermeasures to create enduring capabilities.
• Confidence in the information domain focuses on protecting, detecting attacks on, and measuring the health of the information domain, broadly construed. This domain spans the cognitive level of beliefs and attitudes; the knowledge level of scientific discourse, the financial system, supply chains, etc.; the tracking level, which records the digital dust we leave behind when interacting with the myriad digital devices required by modern life; and finally, the transport level, which delivers electronic messages in many forms and with various gradations of observability.

Dates/Time – All Times are Eastern Time Zone (ET)

• Posting Date: October 30, 2024
• Proposers Day: November 7, 2024
• Proposal Abstracts: Abstracts may be submitted on a rolling basis until October 1, 2025 at 5:00 PM
• Proposal Due Date: Proposals may be submitted on a rolling basis until October 29, 2025, at 5:00 PM
• Anticipated individual awards – Multiple awards are anticipated.

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