Research Programs
IARPA sponsors cutting-edge research on a broad range of subjects to benefit and support the Intelligence Community. Our Program Managers are currently engaged in four primary research areas, including, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, machine learning and synthetic biology.
To learn more about the types of programs our program managers have supported and are currently supporting, please see the below list. If there is a specific area of your interest that is not listed here, please contact one of our Program Managers for additional information. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your ideas for future research.
The goal of analysis research is to maximize insights from the massive, disparate, unreliable and dynamic data that are--or could be--available to analysts, in a timely manner. Our programs are in diverse technical disciplines but have common features involving potential transition partners at all stages, beginning with the definition of success, creating technologies that can earn the trust of the analyst user by providing the reasoning for results, and addressing uncertainty and data provenance explicitly.
The goal of collections research is to dramatically improve the value of collected data from all sources by developing new sensor and transmission technologies, new collection techniques that more precisely target desired information, and means for collecting information from previously inaccessible sources. In addition, IARPA pursues new mechanisms for combining information gathered from multiple sources to enhance the quality, reliability, and utility of collected information.
BETTER
Dr. Timothy McKinnon
Massive volumes of multilingual, unstructured text present an overwhelming challenge for analysts...
BRIAR
Dr. Lars Ericson
The BRIAR Program aims to develop software algorithm-based systems capable of performing...
DIVA
Dr. Jack Cooper
Monitoring security video at airports, border crossings, or government facilities is critical for...
FELIX
Dr. David Markowitz
New biotechnologies have enabled the development of diverse biological systems, with potential...
HIATUS
Dr. Timothy McKinnon
HIATUS seeks to develop novel human-useable AI systems for attributing authorship and protecting...
MATERIAL
Dr. Timothy McKinnon
The MATERIAL program is a 47-month venture seeking to address this challenge by building robust,...
MICrONS
Dr. David Markowitz
The MICrONS program aims to close the performance gap between human analysts and automated pattern...
Odin
Dr. Lars Ericson
Biometrics are used by the U.S. government to verify identities and locate persons of interest.
SMART
Dr. Jack Cooper
Manual exploitation methods do not scale with the volumes of data available from single individual...
TEI-REX
Dr. Michael Patterson
The goal of the Targeted Evaluation of Ionizing Radiation Exposure (TEI-REX) program is to...
TrojAI
Dr. Donald Hornback
TrojAI aims to defend an AI from intentional, malicious trojan attacks by developing technology to...
AGILE
Dr. Bill Harrod
The AGILE program aims to develop revolutionizing computer architectures and associated integrated...
EQuAL-P
Dr. Paul Kolb
The Intelligence Community (IC) and the Department of Defense (DoD) missions often require the use...
Fun GCAT
Dr. Sherrie Pilkington
The Fun GCAT is developing methods to rapidly assess the function of DNA sequences to determine if...
LHO
The Little Horned Owl program is developing ultra-quiet mini UAVs (defined as having a take-off...
LogiQ
Dr. Michael Di Rosa
The LogiQ program aims to advance quantum computing by creating an error-corrected logical qubit,...
MIST
Dr. David Markowitz
The MIST program launched in September 2019 to deliver a new category of resource-efficient...
RAVEN
Dr. Bill Harrod
The RAVEN program seeks to develop technology that will ensure the manufacturing quality of...
RESILIENCE
Dr. Dawson Cagle
The IC needs reliable power sources for missions in extreme and challenging environments. This...
SCISRS
Dr. Paul Kolb
The goal of the SCISRS program is to develop smart radio techniques to automatically detect and...
SuperCables
Dr. Bill Harrod
The SuperCables program began in June of 2019, with the goal to develop an optical fiber...
SuperTools
Dr. Mark Heiligman
Superconducting electronics offers the possibility of faster and lower power circuits, but the...