US Air Force Awards $8.6M Digital Contract
The U.S. Department of the Air Force has awarded an $8.6 million contract to Istari Digital. The contract is to establish Industry Øne, an initiative designed to accelerate digital transformation and break down digital engineering barriers across the Defense Industrial Base.
The Industry Øne initiative aims to create an "Internet of Models" for the defense sector, allowing engineering data to be securely accessed and interact without being centralized or copied. This approach, where data remains under the owner's control behind their own firewalls, is designed to overcome persistent hurdles in defense acquisition like fragmented IT systems and incompatible software. Leading Istari Digital is CEO Will Roper, who previously served as the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. The company, founded in 2022 and backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, focuses on creating digital engineering ecosystems to accelerate innovation. This new contract builds on previous successful collaborations with the Air Force. One such project is "Flyer Øne," a $19.1 million effort with Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works to create the world's first digitally-certified aircraft, the X-56A X-plane. Another initiative, the $15 million "Model Øne," focused on linking models and simulations across the Air Force to tackle challenges of "internetized" warfare. The core technology behind these initiatives is the "digital thread," which creates a seamless flow of data across the entire lifecycle of a product, from design to maintenance. This concept is inspired by industries like Formula 1, where extensive modeling and simulation are used to design and certify thousands of digital car variations before any physical manufacturing occurs. By implementing this, the Department of Defense aims to move away from slow and costly physical prototyping.
