DARPA wants AI built into running its biotech research

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm that funds high-risk military technology, has hired Systems Planning and Analysis to help manage its biotechnology programs, and it wants artificial intelligence built into how that work is done.

The Alexandria, Virginia-based company received a $10.9 million task order for operational and program support services, the U.S. Department of War said. The order covers technical, administrative, programmatic and financial management of new and ongoing biotechnology programs, carried out in what the notice calls an “AI-augmented, -integrated, and -enabled manner.”

The notice does not explain what that means in practice. It does not say which tasks AI tools would handle, which tools would be used, or whether DARPA requires specific software.

Work will take place in Arlington, Virginia, where DARPA has its headquarters, and is expected to run through October 2031. DARPA obligated $3.9 million in fiscal 2026 research, development, test and evaluation funds at award. The order was competed, and three companies submitted offers.

The deal is a cost-plus-fixed-fee and award-fee order. SPA will be reimbursed for its costs and paid a fixed fee, plus an additional fee that depends on how DARPA rates its performance.

DARPA has no labs of its own. Its program managers fund outside teams at universities, laboratories and companies, and lean on support contractors for engineering, science, financial management, administrative and acquisition work. That support role is what SPA will fill for the biotechnology portfolio.

The notice does not name the DARPA office involved. The agency’s biotechnology research is run by its Biological Technologies Office, whose most recent office-wide solicitation, issued in October 2025, sought proposals in AI and machine learning for biology, combat casualty care, human performance under extreme stress, and bio-inspired materials and sensors. That solicitation stopped accepting proposals on Sept. 30.

SPA has done this kind of work for DARPA before. In 2023, it was one of six companies, along with Booz Allen Hamilton, ManTech, Amentum, ECS and Strategic Analysis, selected for DARPA’s Technical and Analytical Support Services II contract, a five-year vehicle with a combined $1.25 billion ceiling covering advisory work for all of the agency’s technical and support offices. DARPA received 12 offers for that contract.

Earlier this year, SPA won a five-year, $151.4 million contract to provide scientific, engineering and technical assistance to DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, which runs the agency’s AI and cyber programs. The company said at the time that it had supported DARPA for more than 17 years.

Founded in 1972, SPA employs nearly 3,000 people and is owned by private equity firm Arlington Capital Partners. Much of its work is analysis and engineering for the U.S. Navy, including the Strategic Systems Programs office that manages the service’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles.