USSOCOM SOF AT&L INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND AGILE ACQUISITION, Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO)

AMENDMENT 001 (March 3, 2026): This amendment is issued to post the attached question and answer document. Please review attached "SOF_ATL_CSO_QA Updated" document located at the Attachments/Links section near the bottom of the posting. USSOCOM SOF AT&L INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND AGILE ACQUISITION Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) 24 February 2026 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This CSO is intended to meet the requirements of DFARS 212-70 Commercial Solutions Opening. The intent of this notice is to establish a USSOCOM SOF AT&L CSO that remains open for a period of two (2) years. The CSO includes a broad enterprise CSO requirement at the parent level and will be refined through subsequent individual CSO calls that will address specific technology interest areas. At the parent level, the scope of the CSO is commensurate with SOF AT&L current and future mission sets. Each specific call against this CSO may establish a tailored scope with additional AOIs to meet the requirements of that call. Interested vendors may only submit a white paper or solution brief in response to a specific call. Specific calls will have associated open and closing dates. THE FUTURE OPERATING ENVIRONMENT: U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) will increasingly operate in a complex and contested future operating environment (FOE). This environment is defined by "Convergence . SOF missions will be conducted under the constant threat of surveillance, in communication-degraded or denied areas, and against adversaries with sophisticated military capabilities. To maintain a decisive advantage, the strategic focus is on gaining information dominance and empowering the operator. This will be achieved not by a single technology, but through the seamless integration of systems that accelerate decision-making, reduce cognitive load, and enable tailored lethal and non-lethal effects, all while maintaining tactical invisibility. A high-level requirement across all areas is human and system survivability enabled via signature management and threat defeat mechanisms. Technology priorities emphasize systems that are small, lightweight, rugged, modular, multi-use, low-power, and designed for extreme environment In order to support rapid fielding of capabilities, SOF AT&L seeks to award FAR and non-FAR contracts and agreements to non-traditional and traditional defense contractors to carry out prototype projects for SOF AT&L that are directly relevant to open architecture and integrability. As such, under the authority of 10 USC 3458 and DFARS 212-70, USSOCOM SOF AT&L releases this Commercial Solutions Opening. This CSO may result in an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) or a FAR-based contract. This Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) will make awards to proposals for innovative, commercial technologies through multi-phased, competitive processes through February 28, 2028. Awards may include prototypes as well as concept demonstrations, pilots, and agile software development activities that can incrementally improve commercial technologies, existing Government-owned capabilities, or concepts for defense application. Interested vendors should note that all of PEO SDA s Programs of Record are being managed in accordance with DoDI 5000.87, the software acquisition pathway, for the timely acquisition of custom software capabilities developed for the DoD. Programs will require government and contractor software teams to use modern iterative software development methodologies (e.g., agile or lean), modern tools and techniques (e.g., development, security, and operations (DevSecOps)), and human-centered design processes to iteratively deliver software to meet the users priority needs. OPEN ARCHITECTURE AND INTEROPABILITY: All proposed solutions, regardless of the capability area, must be built upon a foundation of modularity, interoperability, and open standards. Proposals for closed, proprietary systems that inhibit third-party integration or prevent data portability may be considered non-compliant and at a significant competitive disadvantage. Our strategic intent is to foster a "system of systems" environment, not to procure a collection of siloed capabilities. Offerors must explicitly describe their approach to open architecture, their use of widely accepted standards (e.g., C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS), Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA), and how their system enables data, analytics, and components to be portable, scalable, and upgradeable by different vendors. The long-term cost of integration and the freedom from vendor lock-in are elements that will be assessed as part of the evaluation criteria. AREAS OF INTEREST (AOIs) AOI I: Market Research/Creative Development: As USSOCOM S&T addresses the USSOCOM Future Operating Environments, missions sets, and Capabilities and Planning Guidance, in addition to other strategic documents and partner collaboration products, obtaining innovative methods and new capabilities for market research is critical to understand the state of foreign and domestic commercial, academic and government ability to meet SOF concept, capability, and technology interest areas. Additionally, creative products are required to facilitate newcomer onboarding, storytelling, leadership engagement, and better?informed decision-making in the dynamic SOF environment. It is anticipated that these will come in the form of videos, computer graphics, storyboards, visual art and other media, or other new innovative commercial methods, technologies, or services. AOI II: Design Development/Systems Engineering: As USSOCOM S&T agilely and rapidly investigates capabilities to address SOF?peculiar concepts and missions, disciplined and rigorous engineering and design must be utilized to reduce technical and programmatic risk, as well as improve capacity for eventual transition to Programs Of Record. Submissions should address either innovative commercial items, technologies, or services that aid in design development capabilities (including, but not limited to software development best practices, experimentation, and user experience trials), or systems engineering rigor (interface definition, requirement derivation, system architecture), or both. AOI III: Multi?Domain Test and Evaluation, including Rapid Remodel, Refit and Upgrade of Wargaming and Experimentation Facilities: This AOI is expanded to include the use of virtual environments for software and/or AI/ML validation. The intent is to allow a vendor s software release to run numerous simulations with various permutations to gain confidence in the virtual world before entering into formal DT. The stretch goal is to validate AI/ML models completely in a virtual environment. AOI IV: Rapid Prototyping/Low-Rate Production: Offerors should demonstrate innovative commercial items, technologies, or services that aid in rapidly prototyping or manufacturing small lots (<100) of experimental electronics, chipsets, batteries and other multi?material experimental prototypes based on task orders from S&T Futures and the Experimentation Force. AOI V: Information Dominance & Battlespace Awareness: The primary goal is to achieve persistent, automated, and near-real-time collection, processing, and dissemination of data to enable predictive analysis and superior situational awareness. Collaborative Autonomy & Uncrewed Systems: Developing and integrating autonomous air, ground, and maritime systems that can work together with minimal human intervention. These systems will share data in real-time to inform their own tasking and positioning, reducing operator burden and decision time. This includes support for autonomous systems with onboard detectors/effectors (which may or may not be autonomous) and the data exchanges between all related systems. Advanced Sensor Systems: Fielding a wide range of advanced, multi-domain sensors (e.g., EO/IR, LIDAR, RF, Quantum) that are smaller, lighter, open-source, modular, and more power-efficient. The focus is on improving detection, tracking, and identification of targets and threats, including those with low signatures, in any environment, while also integrating legacy sensors into sensor data fusion systems and fielding MOSA-compliant sensors to enable rapid data fusion. Data Analytics & Machine Learning: Harnessing AI/ML algorithms to rapidly process vast amounts of data from diverse sources at the tactical edge. This enables predictive maintenance, automated target recognition, anomaly detection, and turns raw data into mission-relevant intelligence to accelerate decision-making. AOI VI: Multi-Domain Communications & Cyber Operations: To ensure resilient and secure operations across the globe, the focus is on transforming networks and data management for contested electromagnetic spectrums. Advanced Computing & Edge Processing: Providing powerful, low-power, and platform-agnostic computing capabilities at the tactical edge in mounted (air, land, sea) or dismounted operations. This…