[dmoy]

Initial budget still bigger than a sbir/sttr phase 2 though. Different grant award structure for not-small companies, but my brain also breaks a little bit because anthropic isn't that far above the sbir employee # cap, but the $$ numbers are so big

[ghc]

It's closer in structure to a sbir phase 3, however. If I read between the lines, the DoD isn't looking to do research, they're likely desperate to find a way to deploy and run SOTA models in disconnected environments.

If you look at all the recent LLM-focused SBIR/STTR topics, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that DoD orgs are drowning in paperwork and want to automatically synthesize reports. Actually getting an LLM cleared for use might be the hurdle they're looking to overcome.

[dmoy]

Oh good point

Traditionally there wasn't (for sbir/sttr) any kind of path for direct-to-phase3 like there is/was for skipping phase 1. But I guess some fires under certain butts can cut even DoD red tape lol. Or also, bigger contracts just don't follow the same procedures anyway