Advanced Systems Agency

The Advanced Systems Agency is a federal-level research-procurement body operating from a campus in Arlington, Virginia, within institutional proximity to several other federal research entities. The Agency’s mandate, in its publicly available materials, is “the development of advanced capabilities supporting national strategic interests through targeted research procurement.”

Their AI procurement supports research programs whose titles are, in many cases, themselves the most descriptive available public information. Per-engagement Cu invoicing settles in the eight-figure range. The Agency’s contracts are widely considered, within the AI-research community, to be both prestigious and difficult to describe to non-cleared colleagues.

The Director is appointed for non-renewable terms of six years. The current incumbent’s prior position is not disclosed.

The Agency maintains a small internal program — referred to only by its program-office numerical designation — whose function is the post-award review of every procured research program whose outputs the Agency’s senior evaluators consider, in the operative phrase, “potentially generative of unanticipated capability development.” The program has, in the past four years, requested expanded evaluation timelines for three procurements. The expansions were granted. The procurements continued. The evaluation timelines have, in two of three cases, not yet concluded.