# Securing Artificial Intelligence for Battlefield Effective Robustness (SABER)

**R-2A activity** of project MSL-05 — ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND HUMAN-MACHINE SYMBIOSIS  
**Program element:** 0602025E — Making, Maintaining, Supply CHAIN AND Logistics  
**Component:** Defense-Wide · **Budget Activity:** 2  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602025E/MSL-05/a0  
**Parent:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602025E/MSL-05

## Summary

This activity requests $16.4M in FY2027, 12% of project MSL-05, up 20% on FY2026. The R-2A exhibit describes it across FY2026–FY2027, including what the FY2027 money is planned to buy.

## What the FY2027 request buys

**FY2027 planned work.** - Refine AI risk analysis techniques and tools based on the results of initial operational exercises and red team experiences. - Quantify the effectiveness of alternative robustness enhancements and TTPs across diverse use cases. - Conduct high-fidelity operational and red team exercises targeted to high-priority DoW AI-robustness use cases, and capture results in AI-robustness TTPs. - Explore the combined AI-cyber-physical attack and counter-measure spaces to anticipate and prepare for sophisticated adversarial AI challenges.

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** The FY 2027 increase reflects continued development of AI risk analysis techniques and tools and expanded efforts to evaluate the technologies on diverse DoW use cases.

## Before the request year

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Formulate a comprehensive approach to adversarial AI to serve as the basis for the development of risk analysis and robustness enhancement of AI-enabled systems. - Create techniques and tools for use by developers and red teams to perform risk analysis of AI-enabled systems during development and operations. - Collaborate with the Joint Force on a series of high-fidelity operational exercises to iteratively assess and red team AI-enabled military systems in battlefield settings, to demonstrate utility of AI robustness techniques across multiple use cases, and to formulate AI robustness TTPs.

## Funding

| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2026 | Enacted | 13.7 |
| FY2027 | Request | 16.4 |

> Prior, current and budget year only — an R-2A activity carries no five-year plan. It sums exactly into its project in the request year and not necessarily in any other.

## Other activities in project MSL-05

- [Artificial Intelligence Engineering and Assurance Studies and Concepts](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602025E/MSL-05/a8) — FY2027 39.7
- [Artificial Intelligence Operations and Effects Studies and Concepts](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602025E/MSL-05/a9) — FY2027 37.7
- [Artificial Intelligence Quantified (AIQ)](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602025E/MSL-05/a1) — FY2027 13.4
- [Anticipatory and Adaptive Anti-money Laundering (A3ML)](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602025E/MSL-05/a2) — FY2027 10.2
- Fostering Research and Growth in Emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI FORGE) — FY2027 6.6
- Kallisti — FY2027 6.0
- National Security Economic Theory (NASCENT) — FY2027 5.2
- Transfer from Imprecise and Abstract Models to Autonomous Technologies (TIAMAT) — FY2027 2.7
- Scientific Feasibility (SciFy) — FY2027 1.2
- Open Price Exploration for National security (OPEN) — FY2027 —
- Learning Introspective Control (LINC) — FY2027 —
- Assured Neuro Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (ANSR) — FY2027 —
- Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) — FY2027 —

## Source & machine access

- **Source:** FY2027 Office of the Secretary of Defense RDT&E Budget Justification, Exhibit R-2A, PE 0602025E project MSL-05 (PB PB2027). Narrative is the government's own text.
- **No marks, no contractors at this grain** — congressional marks land on the program element and R-3 performers on the project.
- **MCP:** `mcp.hitchintel.com` — `budget_get_activity`.

*HitchAI is an independent intelligence service, not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Budget figures are requests/estimates, not obligations.*