RDT&E Program Element · President's Budget PB2027

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Basic Research

PE 0601601A·U.S. Army·Approp. 2040 — RDT&E·BA1 — Basic Research
FY2027 Request
$0.0M
Army · RDT&E
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U.S. Army funding falls 100% to a $0.0M request in FY2027 (down from a FY2026 peak).

FY2027 Request
$0.0M
▼ 100% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$17.0M
▲ 71% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$9.9M
Prior year

For fiscal year 2027, the U.S. Army is requesting $0.0M for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Basic Research under RDT&E program element 0601601A, down 100% from FY2026.

Funding trajectory

Funding profile, FY2025–FY2031

Prior years are actuals, the budget year is the request, and the outyears are the FYDP plan. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.

09.9FY25ACTUAL17.0FY26ENACTED0.0FY27REQUEST0.0FY280.0FY290.0FY300.0FY31
Actual Enacted Request Outyear (FYDP)
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual9.9
FY2026Enacted17.0
FY2027Request0.0
FY2028Outyear0.0
FY2029Outyear0.0
FY2030Outyear0.0
FY2031Outyear0.0
Where it sits

Acquisition lifecycle

This program is funded in RDT&E Budget Activity 1 — Basic Research.

Current
Research
BA 1–2
Later
Advanced Technology
BA 3
Later
Prototyping
BA 4
Later
Development & Fielding
BA 5–7
Inside the program element

1 project rolls up into PE 0601601A

Projects are the summable leaves — the PE total is their sum, never added to it. Program elements and projects carry the full five-year plan; activities stop at the budget year. This PE moves -100% overall, which can hide much larger swings below.

Project CL3

AI/ML Basic Research Hub

FY2027 request ▼ 100%
FY2025 actual$9.9M
FY2026 enacted$17.0M
FY2027 request

The Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML) Basic Research Hub is a consortium of industry, government, and academia focused on AI basic research originating from world leaders in academic research pertaining to AI/ML breakthrough technologies for future application to Army-relevant areas such as object recognition using Multiple Cooperative Autonomous Sensors, leader decision-making, replication of tactical behaviors to enable autonomous capabilities for maneuver, predictive maintenance, Intel support for Operations, network and cybersecurity, AI-enhanced common operating picture, intelligent business and process automation, and medical support. Collaboration between academia, industry, and government is a key element of the Hub concept as each member brings with it a distinctly different approach to research. Academia is known for its cutting-edge innovation; the industrial partners are able to leverage existing research results for transition and to deal with technology bottlenecks; and Army AI researchers keep the program oriented toward solving complex Army technology problems. Work in this project compliments Program Element (PE) 0602180A (Artificial Intelligence Technologies) and PE 0603040A (Artificial Intelligence Advanced Technologies). Work in this project is performed by the Artificial Intelligence Integration Center (AI2C).

Accomplishments / planned programs (R-2A) — prior, current and budget year only
Foundation Models▼ 100%
FY2025 actual$3.2M
FY2026 enacted$3.7M
FY2027 request

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects the termination of this initiative and the strategic reallocation of resources to support the evolving priorities.

FY2026 plans — current year Will research techniques to extend foundational models (such as those for language, vision, and segmentation) across multiple modalities; expand new methods to synthesize multi-modal data for use-cases such as querying the data through natural language, question-answering, semantic segmentation, and product generation.

FY2025 accomplishments Research techniques to efficiently and accurately transfer foundation models to improve automated threat recognition. Expand on current research to improve methods for making robust predictions in domains with limited observations and labels. Develop new methods to synthesize multi-modal data for use-cases such as querying the data through natural language, question-answering, semantic segmentation, and product generation.

Distributed AI▼ 100%
FY2025 actual$5.4M
FY2026 enacted$1.6M
FY2027 request

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects the termination of this initiative and the strategic reallocation of resources to support the evolving priorities.

FY2026 plans — current year Will research methods for rapid training, retraining, deploying, governing, and interacting with machine learning models hosted on robotic platforms and edge devices; develop new methods for communicating with and between machine learning models and edge devices; expand research into deploying state-of-the-art models, including but not limited to models generally considered to be large or compute intensive, onto rugged edge hardware and small form factor devices; conduct foundation research into methods for attacking and compromising machine learning and artificial intelligence systems as well as for defending against similar attacks; expand research to AI-enabling computing infrastructure…

FY2025 accomplishments Research improvements to AI-enabling computing infrastructure, devices, and algorithms for both enterprise and tactical computing environments. Research autonomy for robotic systems and methods for training, deploying, retraining, and governing machine learning models hosted on robotic platforms and edge devices. Conduct foundation research into methods for attacking and compromising machine learning and artificial intelligence systems as well as for defending against similar attacks.

Human AI Interactions▼ 100%
FY2025 actual$1.4M
FY2026 enacted$1.7M
FY2027 request

FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects the termination of this initiative and the strategic reallocation of resources to support the evolving priorities.

FY2026 plans — current year Will extend research on human and non-human behavior and interactions in various online social settings; research effective occupational training in artificial intelligence and machine learning for an audience with diverse technical skills to improve the Army's capability to deploy and use AI/ML products; expand research methods for making machine learning output more interpretable for human consumption and the effects these techniques have on human decision making; research the use of quantitative metrics in measuring the ethical compliance of AI systems; expand research in novel algorithms for improving human decision-making.

FY2025 accomplishments Research human and non-human behavior and interactions in various online social settings. Extend current research on effective occupational training in artificial intelligence and machine learning for an audience with diverse technical skills to improve the Army's capability to deploy and use AI/ML products. Research methods for making machine learning output more interpretable for human consumption and the effects these techniques have on human decision making.

The whole program

AI/ML is funded on 2 lines across 2 appropriations

This program element requests nothing for AI/ML in FY2027. The program is still funded — $0.0M of it — but on other lines, which usually means the work is transferring.

Also funded hereTypeComponentFY2027 $M
AI/ML Demonstration & ValidationRDT&EDefense-Wide
AI/ML totalArmy, Defense-Wide0.0

Lines whose title names the program. 155 further lines only mention AI/ML in their justification text — those fund something else and are deliberately excluded from the total.

Program detail

Mission & acquisition strategy

This Program Element (PE) executes intramural and extramural basic research in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to support an AI-enabled Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) Force. The PE includes projects that perform basic research in AI/ML with the potential to impact areas such as: Target Detection using Multiple Cooperative Autonomous Sensors (MCAS); more effective and quicker leader decision-making through use of AI-enhanced Common Operating Procedure (COP); replication of tactical behaviors to enable autonomous capabilities for maneuver; predictive maintenance; Intel support for Operations (specifically in support of long range precision fires); AI-enabled…

Project CL3 — AI/ML Basic Research Hub
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Provenance

Cite this page

Sources
FY2027 Department of the Army RDT&E Budget Justification · Exhibits R-2 / R-3 · PE 0601601A (President's Budget PB2027).
Suggested citation
HitchAI, "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Basic Research (PE 0601601A)," federal budget intelligence, PB2027 vintage. hitchintel.com/programs/0601601A
Machine access
Markdown twin /programs/0601601A.md · MCP mcp.hitchintel.combudget_get_program_element