Pentagon pays $16.6 million to keep nuke inventory online

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has awarded General Dynamics Information Technology a $16.6 million contract to keep running the computer systems the U.S. military uses to track every nuclear weapon in its stockpile, the U.S. Department of War announced.

The cost-plus-fixed-fee contract covers continued support for the Defense Stockpile Management System. The agency said the award is meant to prevent a lapse in critical nuclear logistics IT support. Work will take place at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is scheduled to finish by Sept. 28, 2027.

The agency obligated $5.9 million in fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance funds at award. The contract was not competed. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency posted a notice of its intent to award it as a sole-source deal on SAM.gov, the federal contracting website, and received one proposal, from GDIT. The agency’s Nuclear Deterrence and IT Contracts Division at Fort Belvoir is managing it.

The stockpile management system houses the Defense Integration and Management of Nuclear Data Services, known as DIAMONDS. Budget documents describe it as the only nuclear weapons reporting system at the Pentagon level and the official record for all nuclear weapons sustainment data. Its main job is to account for, track and inventory U.S. nuclear weapons, components and assemblies, with near real-time data on the stockpile.

The system supports three roles held by the agency’s director. It is used to manage the stockpile and provide nuclear weapons data to the president, Congress and the Joint Staff. It runs the reporting system used to resolve problems and discrepancies with nuclear weapons. It also manages the electronic system for producing and distributing technical manuals for nuclear weapons.

DIAMONDS replaced what had been manual processes and supports both peacetime and emergency stockpile reporting. Users reach it over an encrypted virtual private network classified at the Secret level or through SIPRNet, the military’s classified internet. In 2018, the agency sought contractors to sustain the system and help develop a next-generation version.

Agency budget documents show recent work to virtualize the stockpile management system, moving it onto modern server infrastructure, along with equipment modernization and life-cycle replacement. The fiscal 2027 budget request moves $789,000 into the agency’s operations and maintenance account to cover software licensing for the system.

General Dynamics Information Technology is the IT services arm of General Dynamics and is based in Falls Church, Virginia.