U.S. Army launches Project Griffin to automate cyber defense

The U.S. Army has picked Amazon Web Services and World Wide Technology to help build an autonomous cyber defense system that can find and stop network threats with little human involvement, choosing the two companies on Oct. 23, 2026, for a Project Griffin pilot worth a combined $2.6 million.

The U.S. Army said it wants an autonomous, agentic platform driven by what it calls superintelligence, or SI, that can spot and neutralize cyber threats faster than human analysts, removing the weak points that come from manual data analysis and human action, though it did not say how the $2.6 million is split between the two companies or how long the pilot will run.

“Project Griffin is one of the first efforts under Project ARDS, which is advancing the Army’s adoption of SI-enabled cyber defense capabilities through rapid sprints in conjunction with industry partners. We will swiftly implement SI-enabled cyber tools to detect, divert and deceive threat actors, and rapidly adopt agentic SI to securely scale network defense and disruption,” said Brandon Pugh, principal cyber advisor to the secretary of the U.S. Army.

Project Griffin is one of three fast-tracked efforts under Project ARDS, short for Army Rapid Defensive of Cyber Systems, which Pugh’s office leads together with the assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, Army Cyber Command and the U.S. Army’s chief information officer to find, buy and hand over promising tools to the soldiers who defend its networks.

The pilot will be managed by Project Manager, Cyber Warfare, part of the Portfolio Management Executive for Intelligence and Spectrum Warfare, with Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, handling the contract.

“Through our flexible procurement methods, we were able to quickly seek out SI solutions that will advance the cyber warfighter,” said Col. David Bergmann, project manager for cyber warfare.