Advancing AI Challenges for the United States Department of the Air Force

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Christian Prothmann, Vijay Gadepally, Jeremy Kepner, Koley Borchard, Luca Carlone, Zachary Folcik, J. Daniel Griffith, Michael Houle, Jonathan P. How, Nathan Hughes, Ifueko Igbinedion, Hayden Jananthan, Tejas Jayashankar, Michael Jones, Sertac Karaman, Binoy G. Kurien, Alejandro Lancho, Giovanni Lavezzi, Gary C. F. Lee, Charles E. Leiserson et al. (18 additional authors not shown)

Published: 2025, Last Modified: 01 Mar 2026CoRR 2025EveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY-SA 4.0
Abstract: The DAF-MIT AI Accelerator is a collaboration between the United States Department of the Air Force (DAF) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This program pioneers fundamental advances in artificial intelligence (AI) to expand the competitive advantage of the United States in the defense and civilian sectors. In recent years, AI Accelerator projects have developed and launched public challenge problems aimed at advancing AI research in priority areas. Hallmarks of AI Accelerator challenges include large, publicly available, and AI-ready datasets to stimulate open-source solutions and engage the wider academic and private sector AI ecosystem. This article supplements our previous publication, which introduced AI Accelerator challenges. We provide an update on how ongoing and new challenges have successfully contributed to AI research and applications of AI technologies.