2026-09-24 23:59:59 US/Eastern Time
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1. Problem Statement
Existing DoW maritime domain awareness capabilities result in sluggish target recognition and disjointed asset cueing.
2. Program Objective
The Department of War and its partners seek proven cost-effective advanced maritime intelligence solutions that can be seamlessly incorporated into our current suite of domain awareness tools.
The Deep Blue Observer Prize Challenge aims to evaluate and integrate commercial open source maritime intelligence capabilities that can outperform existing intelligence tools in speed, accuracy, and mission impact. The goal is to transition from reactive monitoring to proactive, analysis-driven threat detection using automated algorithms that improve alert recognition, tracking, and intelligence cross-cueing into tools within the unclassified and classified domains.
DIU is partnering with the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Intelligence Fusion Centers, Joint Interagency Task Force–South (JIATF-S), and Singapore Ministry of Defence.
3. Desired Solution Attributes
We seek solutions that can:
● Combine maritime data from multiple open and commercial sources.
● Automatically detect and track suspicious activity, reducing manual analyst workload.
● Connect the dots across data sources to identify patterns and emerging threats.
● Prioritize high-value alerts and reduce false positives.
● Lower cost per effect by getting more operational value from existing data, sensors, and personnel.
● Integrate with existing government platforms.
Operational environment and scale:
● We’re interested in capabilities that can monitor both U.S. EEZ and international maritime boundaries for illicit maritime activities.
● The system must be scalable for use by a broad consortium, including:
o Coast Guard Intelligence (CG-2), Maritime Intelligence Fusion Centers (MIFCs), Area and District Command Centers utilizing Sextant and SPAR user interfaces.
o Joint Interagency Task Force- South (JIATF-S) MAGE and CSII systems
o International partners in Singapore
4. Challenge Series (Phases)
The Deep Blue Observer challenge will follow a three-phase iterative development cycle over approximately six months:
● Phase 1: Evaluation of Vendor Submissions and Down-Selection
● Phase 2: Vendor Demonstrations
Vendors will demonstrate defined maritime use cases within their existing environments/user interfaces against real data. Vendors will be provided a specific period of time to demonstrate MDA applications against real time maritime activity (i.e. 48 hours prior to scheduled demo).
● Phase 3: Solicitation of Proposals/Award of Prototype Projects
Selected vendors will propose integration into Government Owned Systems and user community testing/validation to include end-to-end detection, tracking, and hand-off of a target of interest to USG and coalition partners. Vendors will validate their ability to share data across domains and classification levels to interagency and foreign partners.
5. Evaluation Criteria
Phase 1: Evaluation of vendor submissions and own-selection
The initial evaluation of written submissions to select viable commercial technologies for live demonstration will include the following criteria:
● Technical viability and alignment: The degree to which the solution meets the technical capabilities and alignment to partner’s MDA activities (i.e. continuously monitor, detect, and track illicit maritime activity).
● Team and company viability: Applicants must have the demonstrated capability, current production rates, and corporate expertise to successfully develop, deliver, and sustain the solution.
● Cost and scalability: The feasibility of proposed pricing to ensure user access to tools and applications (i.e. licensing cost and data access model).
● Quality of submission: A clear, thorough explanation of how the technology fills current capability gaps and enhances operational effectiveness.
Following the Government's evaluation of solutions in Phase 1 in accordance with the specified criteria, the top 10 ranked vendors will be awarded monetary prizes of $50,000 each.
Phase 2: Vendor Demonstrations
Operational demonstration and assessment will take place under realistic conditions to validate the tool’s ability to provide insights into narcotic smuggling, human smuggling, and piracy use cases. Tools will be evaluated by a designated team of USCG and JIATF-S maritime intelligence analysts and end users. They will be evaluated on Phase 1 criteria plus:
● Operational effectiveness: The team will validate if MDA applications are able to provide insights not already available to intelligence watch floors and fusion centers.
● End-user feedback: This includes ease of use, learning curve, and direct tactical feedback from operators testing the applications. Selected vendors should utilize open source or proprietary maritime data sets to demonstrate their capabilities. The data should focus on real time maritime activities.
● Quality of the demo: The team will look for clear communication of the solution’s value proposition, commercial viability in non-defense markets, and responsiveness to technical or business questions from strategic advisors.
Selected vendors will receive the opportunity to demonstrate operational performance via prototype OT contract.
Phase 3: Solicitation of proposals/award of prototype projects
Down-selection to Phase 3 may yield a prototype award and potential for follow-on production contract or agreement. Evaluation criteria during prototyping will be provided to vendors selected to participate in Phase 3.
6. Submission Requirements
● Format: PDF file, 16:9 horizontal orientation, and a maximum of 15 slides or a 10-page white paper.
● Content:
o Describe the technical viability and alignment of the solution to this AOI.
▪ Clearly describe if your solution is hardware or software based or a combination of both.
o Describe your team and company, associated licensing fees and data cost structure, and the existing customer base (i.e. USG, international, and commercial).
● Personnel & Clearance Requirements: Vendors selected for prototype awards must provide engineers cleared up to Secret for on-site development sprints during Phase 3 but the data is intended to be at the unclassified level.
Dual-Country Consideration: Vendors wishing to compete for both U.S. and Singapore opportunities must submit separate, independent applications to each respective country's portal. The U.S. and Singapore will review submissions independently.
o Singapore Submission Requirements: Vendors interested to apply with Singapore defence organisations should use the link provided below. U.S. and Singapore will review submissions independently. Note separate submissions are required to be considered by both US and Singapore partners.
https://accelerator.capvista.com.sg/en/challenges/deep-blue-observer-joint-challenge?lang=en
7. Estimated Challenge Timeline
Phase 1 Proposal Reviews: Mid-Oct '26
Phase 2 Select Vendor Demos: Mid-Nov '26
Phase 3 Prototyping: Feb ‘27 to Jun ‘27
Transition / Initial Production Contracts: Jun to Jul '27
8. Security & CUI Data Provisioning
● Pre-Authorized CUI Data Ingestion & Participation Requirements
Down-selected participants in Phase 2 (Vendor Demonstrations) and Phase 3 (Prototyping) may be provisioned Government Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), real-time or historical operational datasets, or sensitive maritime domain awareness feeds. Access to and ingestion of CUI is contingent upon execution of a CUI-handling Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the vendor and DIU, alongside a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) self-attestation confirming corporate environment compliance with NIST SP 800-171 standards prior to data delivery.
● Specific Compliance Benchmarks
Participating vendors must architect their technical, demonstration, and model-training environments to satisfy the following Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) compliance benchmarks:
o NIST SP 800-171: Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Systems and Organizations. Vendors must maintain FIPS 140-2 validated encryption at rest and in transit.
o DFARS 252.204-7012: Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting (including mandatory 24-hour project-level incident notification to DIU).
o DFARS 252.239-7010: Cloud Computing Services (cloud environments hosting CUI must be rated FedRAMP Moderate or High and specifically configured for CUI).
o DFARS 252.204-7021: Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Requirements.
● Personnel Assurance & Authorized Holder Training
Prior to receiving CUI data access, vendors must submit valid Center for Development of Security Excellence (CDSE) "Authorized Holder" CUI Training certificates for all personnel who will handle, analyze, or process Government-provisioned data. Certificates are valid for one year from completion.
● Technical Provisioning & Strict Media Restrictions
o Delivery Platform: CUI datasets will be provisioned via DIU’s FedRAMP-High/IL4-compliant Box instance platform on an invitation basis following verification of MOUs, CISO self-attestations, and training certificates.
o Total Portable Media Ban: Exporting CUI or CUI-derived datasets to any external or portable media (including, but not limited to, USB flash drives, external hard drives, or SD cards) is strictly prohibited, regardless of encryption status. All data must remain securely within the vendor's NIST SP 800-171 compliant environment.
o Media Sanitization: At the conclusion of evaluations, vendors must sanitize all local drives and systems that ingested Government CUI in accordance with NIST SP 800-88.
● Legal & Financial Relationship Framework
Vendors acknowledge that pre-contractual data sharing under this Prize Challenge is conducted under a "Lawful Government Purpose". The Government will utilize prize payment disbursements as the legal "Financial Relationship Anchor" in federal systems to establish the formal business relationship required for CUI data sharing.
Eligibility
● Phases 1 and 2 are open to all vendors.
● Any prototype project resulting from Phase 3 will be awarded under 10 U.S.C. §4022, Authority of the Department of Defense to carry out certain prototype projects. Accordingly, vendors must be able to satisfy one of the following requirements of 10 U.S.C. §4022(d), Appropriate Use of Authority:
o There is at least one nontraditional defense contractor or nonprofit research institution participating to a significant extent in the prototype project.
o All significant participants in the transaction other than the Federal Government are small businesses (including small businesses participating in a program described under section 9 of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 638)) or nontraditional defense contractors.
o At least one third of the total cost of the prototype project is to be paid out of funds provided by sources other than the Federal Government.
Follow-on Production
Companies are advised that any prototype Other Transaction (OT) agreement awarded in response to Phase 3 of this Area of Interest may result in the award of a follow-on production contract or transaction without the use of further competitive procedures. The follow-on production contract or transaction will be available for use by one or more organizations in the Department of War and, as a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the prototype OT. As such, any prototype OT will include the following statement relative to the potential for follow-on production: "In accordance with 10 U.S.C. 4022(f), and upon a determination that the prototype project for this transaction has been successfully completed, this competitively awarded prototype OT may result in the award of a follow-on production contract or transaction without the use of competitive procedures.”
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If we think there’s a good match between your solution and our DoD partners, we’ll invite you to provide us with a full proposal — this is the beginning of negotiating all the terms and conditions of a proposed prototype contract.
After a successful prototype, the relationship can continue and even grow, as your company and any interested DoD entity can easily enter into follow-on contracts.
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