US Air Force Awards $8.6M Digital Engineering Contract

Istari Digital is led by CEO Will Roper, who previously served as the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, giving him inside perspective on the department's modernization challenges. The company, founded in 2022, is focused on creating an "engineering metaverse" by developing collaboration platforms for digital twins and simulations. The Industry Øne initiative directly targets a major hurdle in defense programs: the thousands of suppliers using incompatible software tools behind separate corporate firewalls. This currently forces engineers to manually copy and share sensitive data, a slow process that introduces security risks and hinders collaboration. Istari's platform aims to solve this by creating what Roper calls an "Internet of Models." It allows different organizations to grant secure, policy-enforced access to their engineering data without ever centralizing, copying, or storing it outside their own control, enabling models to interact across firewalls. This contract builds on prior Air Force projects with Istari. One such initiative is "Flyer Øne," a $19.1 million program with the Air Force Research Laboratory to create the world's first fully digitally certified aircraft, aiming to eliminate the need for costly and slow physical prototyping. Another, "Model Øne," is a $15 million project to link various Air Force models and simulations. These efforts are part of a much larger push by the Department of the Air Force to establish a "Digital Enterprise." The goal is to move beyond paper-based deliverables and use digital models throughout a system's lifecycle—from design and testing to long-term maintenance and support. This digital transformation faces significant obstacles across the defense industry, including the difficulty of integrating new technology with legacy systems, budget constraints, and a shortage of personnel with expertise in digital engineering and data science.