Information Processing Techniques Office Office-Wide

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 visit the I2O technical office page (https://www.darpa.mil/about/offices/i2o) to view current and upcoming I2O programs and solicitations in order to avoid proposing efforts that duplicate existing activities or that are responsive to other published I2O solicitations.

The Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) creates technological surprise through

groundbreaking information science, technology development, and the delivery of fundamentally

new information capabilities for national security. The office's current portfolio is centered on

three primary thrust areas:

AI Innovation and Execution

We envision vastly more energy-efficient and assured artificial intelligence (AI) systems

to advance asymmetric capabilities at the edge of the network and to provide trustworthy,

understandable AI to warfighters where and when they need it. We also seek to mitigate

risks of misalignment of machine actions and human interests.

Inherent Security and Privacy

We seek to create a new generation of systems that are inherently secure and inherently

private, together with security and privacy tools that are more effective and more adaptable

– both in the moving-target and reactive senses – than current solutions. We aim to develop

more trustworthy and resilient systems based on the fundamental principles of the cyber

networking, computing, and storage environment, and to create an asymmetric advantage

in cyberspace.

Resilient Megasystems

We aim to develop machine-derived abstractions and models that expose the governing

principles of highly complex and interconnected systems – like supply chains and power

grids – to identify hidden systemic risks and emergent properties, and to enable the precise

targeting of interventions and the proactive assurance of mission-critical functions.