Alpha-1 Development Activities

The Alpha-1 Development Activities program element, managed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, is designed to accelerate the Department of Defense's (DoD) adoption and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy across warfighting, readiness, and business domains. The primary objective is to provide enterprise digital enablers and prototyping efforts that lower barriers to AI/ML adoption, ensure interoperability, and drive efficiencies by investing in common, reusable capabilities for the Joint Force.

Alpha-1 Development (Project 081) focuses on building foundational AI services and capabilities that support a wide range of DoD organizations and mission areas. The project addresses challenges such as high costs, certification hurdles, workforce expertise gaps, and fragmented solution development. Key objectives include supporting AI activities in computer vision, generative AI (GenAI), autonomy, and Responsible AI (RAI) adoption. The project also funds initiatives to recruit, train, and enable the DoD workforce to advance AI adoption, ensuring that personnel have the skills and tools necessary to leverage AI effectively.

Planned activities within Alpha-1 Development include enterprise data acquisition and labeling, development of AI pipelines, creation of testing and evaluation tools, and the advancement of modeling and simulation for AI and autonomy. These efforts are intended to provide the DoD with access to proven and emerging AI models and to support the necessary compute infrastructure. By centralizing investments in these digital enablers, the DoD seeks to ensure that multiple organizations and platforms can leverage these capabilities locally, while maintaining interoperability and reducing redundant development efforts.

AI & Autonomy Enterprise Enablers (Project 773) is a major component of the FY 2026 budget request, reflecting a significant realignment and expansion of activities. This project drives coordinated, enterprise-wide development of AI and autonomy capabilities, with a focus on the full AI/ML pipeline. Objectives include acquiring and labeling data to support autonomy requirements, expanding modeling and simulation (M&S) and synthetic data generation, and piloting new data modalities and fusion techniques. The project partners with agencies such as the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to ensure robust collaboration and integration.

Under AI & Autonomy Enterprise Enablers, the Frontier AI initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of advanced commercial AI capabilities through rapid prototyping and experimentation. This includes partnering with generative AI companies and Combatant Commands to address mission gaps, developing criteria for onboarding new pilots, and facilitating enterprise purchasing of generative AI models for use across multiple security domains. The goal is to make generative AI solutions available to warfighters and support functions, improving both operational effectiveness and DoD efficiency.

Another critical objective within Project 773 is the AI Theater Cloud (AITC), which delivers enterprise-level infrastructure and cloud capabilities to enhance data delivery, decision-making speed, and warfighting capabilities for U.S. and allied forces. AITC's lines of effort include innovative infrastructure enhancements, unclassified collaboration enclaves such as the Sky-Blue enclave supporting Ukraine operations, and classified collaboration environments like the AUKUS Common Development Environment. These efforts are designed to provide resilient, flexible, and secure access to data and AI tools in both unclassified and classified settings, supporting operations in contested or austere environments.