# DARPA issues AI Forge RFI on critical national security AI challenges

_Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 9:00 PM EDT · Policy · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

DARPA and the U.S. National Science Foundation have jointly developed AI Forge to catalyze breakthroughs in AI for national security. The program operates in close collaboration with the Center for AI Standards and Innovation at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The effort focuses on aligning government, academia and industry around foundational research. It seeks to accelerate advances in AI interpretability, AI control and adversarial robustness.

AI Forge hypothesizes that pre-competitive AI research in these areas can accelerate adoption of AI innovations by industry and federal agencies. The program aims to produce AI that is significantly more reliable and predictable in high-stakes settings, understandable to its operators and secure in contested environments.

It envisions building a durable research ecosystem around priority AI challenges. The initiative seeks to enable greater exchange of talent and ideas across universities, frontier AI companies and government.

AI Forge will establish a forum of industry, university and government participants. The forum will identify, fund and manage university-led research efforts on challenges defined in the AI Forge Critical AI Challenges for National Security report.

A nonprofit will administer the forum. This page will be updated with additional details as they become available.

## Sources

- [DARPA](https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/ai-forge)

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