OPM is using AI to modernize its legacy COBOL-coded systems

The Pentagon announced Saturday that it selected five small, non-traditional defense contractors to receive funding to help move their emerging technologies into production. Each company will receive $10 million under the Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) pilot program overseen by Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. The awards mark the first batch of APFIT funding distributed in fiscal 2025 and they’re being bankrolled through continuing resolution appropriations. Shyu said in a statement: “With the backing of APFIT, these companies have an opportunity to push their innovations over the finish line. We look forward to supporting additional projects important to warfighters as more funding is appropriated.” APFIT is intended to steer existing innovation projects across the so-called “valley of death” — a phenomenon in which emerging technologies that have successful research-and-development efforts with the Defense Department fail to receive additional funding for production.