Army awards $100M contract for Next-Gen command and control prototype
Anduril has scored a nearly $100 million contract to continue experimentation on the Army’s Next Generation Command and Control program, the service said Friday.
NGC2, one of the Army’s top priorities, is a clean-slate design for how the service communicates on the battlefield and passes data for operations, providing commanders and units a new approach to information sharing and C2 through agile and software-based architectures. The Army plans to spend almost $3 billion on the effort over the next fiscal year across procurement and research and development funds.
The $99.6 million other transaction authority agreement will span 11 months and cover Anduril’s work to prototype a system for 4th Infantry Division, which will scale the capability all the way up to the division level. Prior, it was outfitted to an armored battalion, as well as higher headquarters elements, and tested at Project Convergence Capstone 5 at Fort Irwin, California, in March.
Anduril’s partners on the contract include Palantir, Striveworks, Govini, Instant Connect Enterprise, Research Innovations, Inc., and Microsoft, the company said in a statement Friday.
The OTA requires the team to provide an integrated and scalable suite of command and control warfighting capabilities across hardware, software and applications, all through a common and integrated data layer, the Army said.
The Army has pushed teams of industry partners to work on the NGC2 effort, calling for “self-organized” teams.
Anduril had been working previously on the NGC2 effort to produce a prototype that was tested at Project Convergence, along with other vendors.
The prototype award is not the end of the road for other vendors seeking entry into the NGC2 program. The Army said additional vendors can seek to participate through an open commercial solutions offering with additional OTAs expected to be awarded later in fiscal 2026 for prototyping with other units such as 25th Infantry Division and III Corps headquarters.
“NGC2 is not a one-and-done contract, but a long-term effort of continuous contracting and investment in the technologies that will deliver needed overmatch for our force,” said Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor, program executive officer for command, control, communications and networks.
Army Futures Command has been in charge of the prototyping effort to date, testing a proof of principle and then a proof of concept to demonstrate what is possible, while the program office has been working on the eventual program of record, devising a contracting strategy and seeking vendors.
Army officials have maintained they want to inject and maintain a high level of competition within the program. If contractors aren’t performing, they will seek to build in mechanisms to offboard them and onboard new vendors.
Similarly, the constant competition is also aimed at avoiding vendor lock-in where one partner holds the bulk of the program for an extended period.
The commercial solutions offering allows the Army to maintain a continuous open solicitation with specific “windows” for decision points, the service said, providing opportunities for industry teams aligning incentives and continuously onboarding new vendors as the capability evolves.
“NGC2 uses a combination of flexible and innovative contracting techniques. This is a completely non-traditional, unbureaucratic way to equip Soldiers with the capabilities they need, using expedited contracting authorities,” said Danielle Moyer, executive director of Army Contracting Command – Aberdeen Proving Ground.
The prototype OTA will allow the Army to continue its momentum toward delivering a solution for units while the commercial solutions offering enables the service to keep looking for capabilities to add to the NGC2 architecture in the future, the service said.
4th Infantry Division will take the NGC2 system to Project Convergence Capstone 6 next year to test it out in a division holistically, to include the headquarters and enabling units, which have typically been neglected with communication network upgrades.
