Air Force Funds Digital Engineering Hub
The Department of the Air Force has awarded an $8.6 million contract to Istari Digital to establish Industry Øne. The initiative is designed to accelerate digital transformation and break down digital engineering barriers across the Defense Department.
Industry Øne tackles a core problem in defense programs: thousands of suppliers using incompatible digital tools behind separate firewalls. This fragmentation slows down development and collaboration, requiring data to be manually copied and shared, which introduces security risks. The new initiative aims to create an "Internet of Models" that allows different organizations to connect and collaborate without centralizing or copying sensitive data. The project is led by Istari Digital, a company founded by Will Roper, the former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. The company is also backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and is focused on creating a "digital engineering metaverse" to transform how technologies are developed. This contract builds on previous Air Force initiatives with Istari. One such project, "Flyer Øne," is working with Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works to create the world's first digitally-certified airplane, the X-56A X-plane. Another initiative, "Model Øne," received a $15 million contract to link models and simulations across the Air Force to address challenges of "internetized" warfare. The ultimate goal is to enable secure, real-time digital collaboration across the defense industrial base. By allowing different digital models to interact through controlled interfaces, the Department of Defense can verify designs and run automated tests more efficiently, accelerating the development of new capabilities. This approach draws inspiration from the high-speed, digital-first design processes used in industries like Formula 1 racing.
