US Air Force Awards $8.6M for Digital Engineering
The Department of the Air Force has awarded an $8.6 million contract to Istari Digital for an initiative called Industry Øne. The project aims to reduce digital engineering barriers and accelerate digital transformation across the Defense Industrial Base. The goal is to create a more integrated and efficient engineering ecosystem.
Istari Digital was founded in 2022 by Dr. Will Roper, the former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, and is backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Roper previously oversaw $60 billion in annual technology development for over 5,300 aircraft and satellites and spearheaded the military's first uses of AI and digital engineering. The "Industry Øne" initiative is part of a much larger Department of Defense (DoD) strategy to shift away from document-based engineering to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). This move aims to tackle the immense complexity and cost of modernizing defense systems by creating a unified digital ecosystem instead of relying on siloed, paper-based processes. At the core of this transformation is the concept of "digital twins"—virtual replicas of physical assets that are continuously updated with real-world data. For an aircraft like the F-35, a digital twin can model everything from engine wear to subsystem performance, allowing for predictive maintenance and virtual testing of new designs without physical prototypes. This digital-first approach creates an "authoritative source of truth" for complex systems, connecting data across the entire lifecycle from design to sustainment. For ML engineers, these high-fidelity digital twins serve as rich, dynamic datasets for training and validating algorithms for applications like anomaly detection, mission performance simulation, and supply chain optimization. The key challenge Industry Øne addresses is the integration of legacy systems and overcoming cultural resistance to change within the vast Defense Industrial Base. Many critical defense programs still rely on decades-old software and workflows, creating significant "technical debt" and hindering the adoption of modern, AI-driven capabilities. Before "Industry Øne," Istari Digital secured a $15 million Air Force contract for a program called "Model One" to connect disparate models and simulations. Another related Air Force project, "Flyer Øne," is already using Istari's platform with the goal of creating the world's first digitally-certified aircraft.
