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NIWC Atlantic’s new Rapid Capabilities Office released its first contract opportunities in January 2026 under its Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) in an effort to rapidly accelerate the delivery of commercial technology to the Fleet at the speed of relevance.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic’s new Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) released its first contract opportunities last week under its Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO), a dynamic acquisition tool aimed at rapidly accelerating the delivery of commercial technology to the fleet at the speed of relevance. “Our first contract offerings under this CSO directly align with strategic Department of War (DOW) and Department of the Navy (DON) imperatives to place the entire acquisition system and defense industrial base on a wartime footing,” said Erick Fry, NIWC Atlantic acting executive director. “NIWC Atlantic’s RCO joins other DOW and DON efforts to accelerate new capabilities to our Sailors and Marines and ready them—under the constraints of time—for the potential of sustained naval combat operations by 2027.” NIWC Atlantic stood up the RCO on Oct. 23 to act as a single, accountable but disruptive organization capable of rapidly responding to emerging operational needs, warfighting capability gaps and changes within the DOW and DON innovation and acquisition ecosystems. Its mission is to accelerate the development and delivery of operationally relevant and effective information warfare capabilities within and across five command focus areas: Battlespace Command and Control, Decision Advantage, Battlespace Connectivity, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, and Non-Kinetic Effects. The two new contract opportunities pushed to industry last week marked the first Areas of Interest (AOIs) published under the CSO (Public Notice ID N65236-26-S-0001). Open through Nov. 2028, the CSO is a competitive three-phased process designed to streamline the procurement of innovative, market-ready solutions that can be quickly prototyped and matched to pressing warfighter needs. The first one, AOI 26-A001 UNIT, seeks a commercial-based solution that transforms massive amounts of raw data into actionable insights in order to foster decision-making advantages in unmanned maritime environments. A second opportunity, AOI 26-A002 Specter, seeks a commercial-based solution for a remote-first, container-native platform solution to serve as its standardized, enterprise-wide hosting solution for modern containerized applications. Submission deadlines are as follows: Jan. 30 for AOI 26-A002 Specter; Feb. 4 for AOI 26-A001 UNIT. In addition to challenging the status quo internally, NIWC Atlantic’s RCO has been aggressively engaged externally. A little over one month after launching, the RCO sent leaders and team members to the annual Eastern Defense Summit to explain its mission and engage with industry. Building the nation’s industrial base into an “arsenal of freedom” was the linchpin of Secretary of War Peter Hegseth’s acquisition reform speech before military and industry leaders at the National War College in November. Leveraging the CSO pipeline, NIWC Atlantic will consistently publish individual AOIs to industry over the next three years requesting specific proposals. “These industry opportunities are the first of many more to come under the RCO CSO, which allows us to identify technology gaps and award commercial prototype solutions in months, not years,” said Jessie Rehwoldt, NIWC Atlantic RCO contracting officer. The NIWC Atlantic RCO is eager to welcome not only existing industry partners but also new companies that may not be as experienced in working with government, she said. April Miller, NIWC Atlantic RCO director, said the CSO can help translate the commercial sector’s increasing levels of technical competence into warfighting capabilities that increase fleet readiness and help the nation counter unprecedented levels of strategic competition. “Our adversaries are rapidly evolving and increasing their warfighting capabilities,” Miller said. “At NIWC Atlantic, this requires us to think differently and leverage our unique strengths in information warfare to develop capabilities that deliver lethality and a decisive advantage to our warfighter.” About NIWC Atlantic As a part of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, NIWC Atlantic provides systems engineering and acquisition to deliver information warfare capabilities to the naval, joint and national warfighter through the acquisition, development, integration, production, test, deployment, and sustainment of interoperable command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, cyber and information technology capabilities. Follow this link for more information regarding Area of Interest 26-A001 UNIT https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/08614d61b9614bc99b937da43fb8f1c0/view Follow this link for more information regarding Area of Interest AOI 26-A002 Specter https://piee.eb.mil/sol/xhtml/unauth/search/oppMgmtLink.xhtml?noticeId=N6523626SC002¬iceType=SolicitationNotice Follow this link for more information regarding ongoing CSO Public Notice ID N65236-26-S-0001 (Period of Availability through November 2028): https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/e19be75cfab646289d2d9116ec8d50fa/view
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