Strategic Catalyst Announcement for AI-BTO

Background
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking innovative ideas to develop novel capabilities for national security through its Biological Technologies Office (BTO). The goal of this solicitation is to catalyze future efforts in various technical areas including Prediction and Health, Autonomous Science, Simulation, Biomanufacturing and Synthetic Biology, Challenges with Scale, and Frontier topics.

DARPA aims to encourage participation from new or non-traditional proposers who can bring advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to the BTO. Performers will maintain ownership of the intellectual property and data sets created during the contract while granting limited rights to the government for the technical data produced.

Work Details
Proposers may submit a White Paper addressing one or more Technical Areas outlined in Section 2.1 of the solicitation. Each submission must be unclassified and clearly identify proprietary information if applicable. The proposal should include a detailed approach to achieving project objectives, highlighting innovation and uniqueness compared to prior efforts.

Key milestones include:
1) Kick-off meeting to define technical approach;
2) Midpoint status meeting for progress briefing;
3) Final milestone for project summary and delivery of data products. Proposers are encouraged to suggest additional milestones based on their proposed solutions. The evaluation process will assess each submission based on its merits against established criteria without comparing against other submissions.

Period of Performance
The contract will be performed over a specified period that aligns with the milestones set forth in the proposals, with specific timelines contingent upon project objectives.

Place of Performance
The work will primarily take place in the National Capital Region during the Pitch Day event.