Pentagon tapping OpenAI, other vendors for ‘frontier AI’ projects

A day after the Defense Department announced a new deal with OpenAI, an official with the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office said announcements about additional partnerships with companies for “frontier AI” projects are on the horizon.

In its daily list of new contract awards, the department announced Monday evening that the CDAO had awarded a $200 million prototype other transaction agreement to OpenAI Public Sector to “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.”

The estimated completion date for the work is July 2026.

The announcement did not provide any additional details about what those capabilities will entail or what specific mission sets they’ll be applied to.

Last year, the CDAO listed a variety of “warfighting” use cases that its newly launched Artificial Intelligence Rapid Capabilities Cell would focus on, including command and control, decision support, operational planning, logistics, weapons development and testing, uncrewed and autonomous systems, intelligence activities, information operations and cyber operations.

“Enterprise management” use cases include financial systems, human resources, enterprise logistics and supply chain, health care information management, legal analysis and compliance, procurement processes, and software development and cybersecurity.

On Tuesday, DefenseScoop sent the CDAO questions seeking more information about the deal with OpenAI.

In a statement, a CDAO official said the vendor will be expected to “prototype agentic workflows to address our hardest challenges.”

The official, who provided comment on the condition of anonymity, added that more announcements are expected in the near term.

“This award is another step on our journey toward accelerating the adoption of advanced AI capabilities across the Department, and, in the coming weeks, we will announce partnerships with other Frontier AI companies as well. Access to top tier talent from partners like OpenAI is critical for building the agentic workflows needed to increase Joint Force lethality and enterprise efficiencies,” they said.

They noted that the CDAO has recently partnered with the Army’s Enterprise Large Language Model (LLM) Workspace to provide military users across the combatant commands, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Staff access to “industry-leading general purpose LLMs.”

In an press release Monday evening announcing the launch of a new “OpenAI for Government” initiative, the company noted the new $200 million deal with the CDAO, saying the organization will help the Pentagon “identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations, from improving how service members and their families get health care, to streamlining how they look at program and acquisition data, to supporting proactive cyber defense.”

More broadly, the company said the OpenAI for Government initiative will give customers access to its “most capable” models within “secure and compliant environments,” including through ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Gov.

It will also offer custom models for national security organizations on a limited basis, per the announcement.

Katrina Mulligan, the head of the company’s national security policy and partnerships who previously served as chief of staff to the secretary of the Army and principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told DefenseScoop that the new project with the CDAO marks a major milestone for OpenAI for Government as it moves to expand its work in the public sector.

“The $200 million ceiling reflects the Department’s trust in OpenAI to responsibly bring frontier AI into mission-critical settings. CDAO is also creating a framework for how OpenAI’s leading expertise can be used to develop and test solutions that support the Department of Defense in its mission to ensure the safety and security of Americans,” she wrote.

An OpenAI spokesperson said the goal of the pilot program is to “scope” and prototype potential applications for frontier AI.

“The contract aims to explore where OpenAI’s tools can improve military operations and cybersecurity, save time for staff by making tedious work more efficient, and help DoD better support service members. DoD requires this type of contract to scope future partnerships, and the project is structured to lead into a potential follow-on production agreement. The applications may take different functions and forms that are yet to be determined – but could include all of our services,” they told DefenseScoop, adding that all use cases must be consistent with the company’s usage policies and guidelines, which “prohibit its use for the development or use of weapons.”

The announcement of the $200 million deal came just a few days after OpenAI’s chief product officer Kevin Weil joined the Army Reserve to serve in Detachment 201, a new “Executive Innovation Corps,” along with other execs from the tech community.

Mikayla Easley contributed reporting for this story.