About $3.35M for DARPA SAIL-ON — the same program split into seven contracts across seven companies, all starting within eight days in November 2019 (PAR Government Systems)

1Studying what happens on meeting the unanticipated

The phrase open-world novelty in the program name refers to encountering what did not exist at the time of training. Building AI that performs well within a defined range has become possible; what happens once outside that range is a separate question.

That the description names underlying scientific principles, general engineering techniques and algorithms marks this as a contract to build the reasoning beneath a product rather than a product. Research contracts whose deliverable is neither equipment nor an operational system are a minority among the records this site holds.

2Running the same program across seven companies

The federal spending records this site holds contain seven contracts whose description includes SAIL-ON. The recipients are Charles River Analytics, RTX BBN Technologies, Kitware, SRI International (twice), PAR Government Systems, and Smart Information Flow Technologies. Amounts range from about $1.95 million to about $6.87 million, totaling roughly $30.21 million.

Rather than awarding heavily to one company and leaving it there, several parties work the problem simultaneously. At the research stage, which line of attack will land is not knowable in advance; splitting the work is itself the method.

3Start dates concentrated within eight days

The seven start on 15, 18, 20, 21 and 22 November 2019, the last accounting for three. All of them began within eight days. Read alone, one looks like a research award to a single company; lined up, they show an award pattern with dates aligned so the work would run in parallel. Browsing contract data by amount or by date will not surface this cluster.

Only grouping by the wording of the description reveals that seven records are one program.

4Start dates clustered into eight days

Setting out the start dates of the seven shows an award scheduled deliberately so that all would run at once.

Read alone, one looks like research entrusted to a single company; set together, the bundle appears. Scanning contract data by amount or by date does not reveal it. Only binding them by the wording of the summary shows that the seven are one plan. Research contracts whose deliverable is neither equipment nor an operational system are a minority among the records this site holds.