On January 28, the Air Force Research
Laboratory posted a broad agency announcement for Quantum Information Services.
White papers may be received throughout the open BAA period, but AFRL
recommends that submissions for FY20 funding be received by January 31.
The Air Force Research Laboratory –
Information Directorate (AFRL/RI) is soliciting white papers under this Broad
Agency Announcement (BAA) for research, design, development, concept testing,
evaluation, experimentation, integration and delivery of Quantum Information
Sciences supporting the implementation and use of Command, Control,
Communications, Computers & Intelligence (C4I)-related information and
communications technologies and techniques. In particular, this effort seeks to
advance and assess advanced algorithm designs and technologies harnessing
emerging quantum computing techniques to support AFRL/RI’s C4I mission.
Research at AFRL/RI’s Rome Research Site, located in Rome, NY, focuses on a
range of activities to include information and signal processing,
communications and networking technology, cyber research, and high performance
computing. Many problems fundamental to these disciplines can be expressed as
optimization problems governing relationships, and then represented as
mathematical equations. Quantum computing provides a non-classical computing
method for finding the global minimum (optimal solution) given these objective
functions and constraints to rapidly arrive at the solution.
AFRL/RI has established a Quantum
Information and Science branch (RITQ). Research within this branch will include
Quantum Algorithms and Computing, Memory-Node-Based Quantum Networking, Quantum
Information Processing, Superconducting Hybrid Quantum Platforms, and Quantum
Information Sciences. These technologies will have both in-house and
contractual based requirements to support the overall mission of the RITQ
branch.
Further, AFRL/RI is interested in
developing a user community around this emerging technology, to consist of
other U.S. Government organizations (federal, state, and local), U.S.
Government contractors and commercial industry, and academia (both public and
private).
BAA ESTIMATED FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $49.9M. Individual awards will not normally exceed 36 months with dollar amounts normally ranging from $0.5M to $2M. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount.
Full information is available here.
Source: SAM
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