The War Department has announced the first round of projects for Fiscal Year 2026 under its Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program. With this announcement, total APFIT awards to small businesses and non-traditional defense contractors have surpassed $1 billion since the program’s inception.
The APFIT initiative aims to quickly transition innovative technologies from development into fielding and initial production, focusing on strengthening the U.S. industrial base and improving readiness for military personnel. The selected projects cover a range of advanced systems across multiple service branches, including unmanned vehicles, high-performance batteries, optical systems, munitions, communications pods, manufacturing solutions, and data networks.
"Crossing the billion-dollar threshold underscores APFIT’s commitment to America’s small business innovators," said Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering. "and we are proud to accelerate the delivery of these critical capabilities to our warfighters."
For FY 2026, the average award size now exceeds $30 million per project. The largest single award in this round is $49.7 million—just below APFIT’s statutory maximum—demonstrating operational demand as well as the maturity of certain technologies entering production.
The newly announced projects include:
- Autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Ground Based Air Defense ($20 million), U.S. Marine Corps
- Deployable Attritable Optical Systems ($22.15 million), U.S. Space Force
- Domestic High Performance UAS Batteries ($28 million), U.S. Navy
- Gremlin Low-Cost Munition ($35 million), U.S. Marine Corps
- High Frequency Intercept Direction Finding and Exploitation ($21.66 million), U.S. Army
- Kraken 18 Communications Pod ($33 million), U.S. Navy
- Miniaturized Gyroscope for Resilient Navigation ($20 million), U.S. Marine Corps
- Mobile Smart Manufacturing for Airframe Spares ($25 million), U.S. Air Force
- Augmented Maneuver Vehicle for Satellites ($48.5 million), U.S. Space Force
- Real-Time Command and Control at the Tactical Edge ($49.7 million), U.S. Army
- Small Uncrewed Maritime Vessels ($24 million), U.S. Navy/U.S. Marine Corps
- Tactical High-Bandwidth, Low-Latency Data Network ($10 million), U.S. Marine Corps
- Trolling Uncrewed Navigation Assistant Seeker ($35 million), U.S. Marine Corps
- Whaleshark Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel ($29.49 million), U.S. Marine Corps
These figures do not include classified selections that may be announced later in the fiscal year.
APFIT continues to serve as a key part of the War Department’s broader strategy to maintain technological leadership by promoting rapid innovation through partnerships with smaller firms across all regions—including those located in traditionally underrepresented or remote states.
Additional projects are expected to be announced throughout FY 2026 as they are chosen.
