🛣️ DOT's AI hits the road

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The House passed its FY27 NDAA on a narrow 216-212 vote, authorizing $1.15 trillion in defense spending, a 5-7% military pay raise, $500 million for a second destroyer, and formally renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War. The bill was attached to the SAVE America Act, which is likely to complicate Senate passage. Senate Democrats have blocked the bill twice over opposition to the Iran war, and Senate Republicans aren't fully aligned on the $60 billion reconciliation package either.

The Pentagon's APFIT program is opening applications for its next cohort, and the CTO is sending a clear signal to industry: cheap and scalable wins. Since 2022, APFIT has delivered over $2 billion in awards to more than 100 small businesses, including the LUCAS drone used in Operation Epic Fury. The next round will prioritize unmanned, autonomous, and AI-driven systems that can be mass-produced. Future funding beyond FY27 is still unresolved.

The USSF is planning a major launch surge, adding 73 missions to its manifest through FY31 at a cost of $11 billion above current projections. The jump is driven by growing demand for Golden Dome missile defense satellites, proliferated LEO constellations, and classified payloads. The service is already working to expand launch capacity and has raised its NSSL contract ceiling to $30 billion to keep pace.

This week’s Insider reports contained:

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✓ 45+ recompete alerts at NOAA with full contract details.

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Congress got a front-row seat to what a Chinese AI-enabled cyberattack on US infrastructure might actually look like. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission ran a classified war game for lawmakers simulating a Taiwan conflict scenario, where AI-powered attacks hit power grids, water systems, and financial networks simultaneously. Participants said the exercise changed how they think about the speed and scale of the threat. Legislation is expected to follow.

SecDef told Congress that Operation Epic Fury has cost the US $37.5 billion to date, the first official price tag on the Iran war. The figure covers munitions expended, operational costs, and forces deployed across the Middle East. Hegseth used the number to press the case for the W.H.'s $67 billion supplemental request.

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DOE's Genesis Mission just got a lot bigger. The W.H. committed more than $5 billion to expand the program across 15 or more agencies, while DOE selected 278 research projects in the largest response to any DOE funding opportunity in its history. New agency partners include DOD, HHS, NASA, NSF, Transportation, and Interior, all coordinating around AI, quantum, and high-performance computing. Mission goals range from pediatric cancer research to compressing weapons design timelines.

Congress introduced the Space Ready 2.0 Act on July 15, giving NASA authority to partner with public and private entities to upgrade aging roads, utilities, and pipelines at its centers. Participation is voluntary, unused private contributions get refunded, and the pilot program sunsets December 31, 2031. With launch demand rising fast on Florida's Space Coast, sponsors frame it as a commonsense fix that modernizes facilities without creating new spending programs.

DOT launched its AI for Transportation Infrastructure initiative, or AI-TI, to apply AI tools across roads, bridges, tunnels, pipelines, and transit systems nationwide. The program will use machine learning to predict maintenance needs, optimize traffic flow, and improve safety outcomes. Initial pilots are planned across several state DOTs with federal matching funds available. For contractors in transportation, civil infrastructure, and AI services, this one opens a new lane of opportunity.

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IBM today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire HRL Laboratories, LLC. HRL is a private company jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors. Both Boeing and GM will continue to partner with IBM on quantum applications and advanced technology development following the transaction. HRL's advanced expertise in silicon-spin qubit engineering will complement and extend IBM’s mission to scale powerful quantum computers and accelerate its quantum vision.

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D) Project Stargate — Project Stargate was a classified U.S. Army and intelligence program that spent more than 20 years investigating whether "remote viewers" (aka: psychics) could psychically gather intelligence about distant people, places, or events. Although some participants claimed success, the program was ultimately terminated after concluding it had no demonstrated intelligence value. (Source)