# Advanced Cyber Operations Studies and Concepts

**R-2A activity** of project AET-03 — ADVANCED CYBER SYSTEMS  
**Program element:** 0603469E — Advanced Enabling Technologies  
**Component:** Defense-Wide · **Budget Activity:** 3  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603469E/AET-03/a2  
**Parent:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603469E/AET-03

## Summary

This activity requests $14.8M in FY2027, 24% of project AET-03, up 204% 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.** - Develop techniques for reasoning about the circuitry inside devices. - Develop automated operational cyber reasoning to enable decisive cyber maneuver warfare. - Develop an automated exploit development platform. - Develop cyber weapons with provable performance guarantees. - Develop techniques to cause hallucinations in adversary AI agents. - Develop persona systems for use in highly engaged virtual environments. - Develop a synthetic red team that probes adversary cognitive and behavioral vulnerabilities. - Model adversary decision rules to craft paradoxical situations that induce logical paralysis. - Develop high-fidelity emulations of adversary individual and group psychological processes.

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** The FY 2027 increase reflects studies and concepts initiations including, but not limited to, the advancement of new technologies to support development of automated operational cyber reasoning to enable decisive cyber maneuver warfare, to model adversary decision rules to craft paradoxical situations that induce logical paralysis, and to support development of cyber weapons with provable performance guarantees and techniques to cause hallucinations in adversary AI agents.

## Before the request year

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Discover logic flaws in security protocol implementations. - Develop algorithms that identify latent vulnerabilities in complex systems.

## Funding

| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2026 | Enacted | 4.9 |
| FY2027 | Request | 14.8 |

> 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 AET-03

- [Constellation](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603469E/AET-03/a0) — FY2027 25.0
- [Advanced Cyber Security Studies and Concepts](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0603469E/AET-03/a1) — FY2027 16.1
- Resilient Software Systems Capstones (RSS Capstones) — FY2027 5.4
- Carcosa — FY2027 —

## Source & machine access

- **Source:** FY2027 Office of the Secretary of Defense RDT&E Budget Justification, Exhibit R-2A, PE 0603469E project AET-03 (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.*