DIU Platform to Link Private Sector Innovation with Defense Needs

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is set to launch a new artificial intelligence-powered program to connect innovative private sector companies to Defense Department. The platform, named DOD Digital OnRamp, will also simultaneously make private sector capabilities discoverable by DOD users.

The tool comes amid calls from the Trump administration to modernize acquisition and bolster AI capabilities to speed innovation across the defense industrial base.

“The point here is to help [innovators and industry] navigate their way to an opportunity,” Deputy Director of DIU’s Digital Platforms and Developer Ecosystem Cheryl Ingstad told GovCIO Media & Research. “We’re talking about the early part of the business development process, the discovery step. How can we speed that up?”

According to Ingstad, “the defense industrial base has shrunk by 40% in the past decade.” Firms “cannot discern the DOD demand signal and cannot navigate the byzantine bureaucracy,” according to a February DIU presentation at NAML 2025.

The Digital OnRamp platform uses feedback and AI to give users the ability to more easily find opportunities or solutions. It brings together multiple databases and collections of DOD opportunities and solutions – including SAM.gov, Army’s SBIR/STTR, Vulcan SOF and others – under one digital roof.

“We interviewed companies who told us they spent eight to 10 hours a week just researching all these different sites to find their next opportunity,” Ingstad said. “And they still miss some because it is that hard to find them.”

A Two-Way Street

Ingstad said that the platform offers a secure, government-only space where DOD officials can input their mission-related problems and discover potential commercial, academic and research solutions. This secure environment incorporates a broader range of datasets, including information on innovation projects and supplier venture databases. Ingstad suggested a hypothetical example of someone looking for a specific solution cutting down on search time for better mission delivery.

“A DOD official might come in and say, ‘I have a corrosion problem. What is the latest that can be delivered on site in a very wet environment?’” Ingstad posited. “[Digital OnRamp says], ‘Here are three solutions from commercial companies. Here are their distributors. By the way, one of these companies has a subcontract already with the Army. Here’s the contract number.’”

Digital OnRamp also fits within efficiency goals by also providing information on already-contracted options, negating duplicative contractors or work in DOD.

“These are things that we tested in the tech demo,” Ingstad added. “It’s really helpful for these officials who otherwise would have to search through so many databases.”

Digital OnRamp integrates advanced generative AI tools to streamline the process of identifying relevant defense opportunities for businesses and innovators across industry, academia and nonprofit organizations. For DOD, the platform allows users to easily search for needed solutions, speeding up the acquisition process. The tool’s large language model negates the need for exacting search terms to filter technology opportunities.

“If you go to sam.gov and type in ‘drone,’ you will go get 2,000 hits, everything for drone, but not ‘UAS,’” DIU Digital OnRamp Project Manager James Miervaldis told GovCIO Media & Research. “Then, that’s on the user to go through every single one and whittle it out. [Digital OnRamp sorts the results] in seconds.”

The platform uses single sign-on, centering the user-friendly experience and easing the need to search dozens of government databases. Ingstad said that the Digital OnRamp registration process only takes seven minutes.

“Thirty different logins, 30 different websites and usernames,” Miervaldis said. “It’s a headache.”

Demonstration Begets Real-World Results

DIU developed Digital OnRamp for nearly three years and recently completed a tech demo of the platform. Miervaldis recruited and trained 100 test users to engage with the platform to research opportunities and solutions, participating in three test sessions daily. According to Ingstad, the engagement exceeded expectations. While DIU instructed test users to submit a few queries, the Digital OnRamp demo recorded more than 7,000 queries.

“What it tells [us] is that when we go live with this, it’s going to really take off and have a lot of volume,” Ingstad noted. “Because if they don’t like it, they don’t stay on during the session and just keep going.”

Ingstad said that another surprise was that the test demo provided tangible results for DOD. Pentagon users in the demo told Ingstad that they already found solutions from Digital OnRamp and were putting the acquisition process into motion.

“We had real DOD users who had real mission related problems … and then they were able to find that,” Ingstad said. “They left the tech demo with something truly tangible … It wasn’t just in a sandbox.”

Lt. Col. Hans Jagow, director of ARCWERX, — a directorate nestled beneath the Air National Guard-Air Force Reserve Test Center — told DIU that the test was a “big win.”

“As a DOD innovation leader, the Digital OnRamp tech demo surpassed my expectations. One of the AI tools found an LLM solution that we were not tracking,” Jagow told DIU. “My team engaged the company and within two weeks they were building a minimal viable product solution for the DOD.”

Modular Construction and Regular Updates

Ingstad said DIU recognized the need to separate AI tools from the underlying Digital OnRamp platform due to the rapidly evolving AI landscape and shifting DOD requirements. This approach helps prevent long-term vendor lock-in and avoids the “black box” sydrome. At launch, the platform will have separate contracts for AI tools and the platform-as-a-service, highlighting its flexible, modular design that allows for easy integration and replacement of AI components.

“As that technology changes, we want to be able to – every six, nine, 12 months – run a competition, qualify them, pay for it, plug them in and not have to go through [excessive time or costs to evolve],” Ingstad said.

“It must be flexible and modular and able to plug in and remove these AI tools as necessary, at the government’s discretion,” she added.

DIU, Ingstad said, collected troves of under-the-hood data during the tech demo, providing insights into the effectiveness and relevance of different data services for users. She added that she expects it to be increasingly valuable to train the AI as the system scales. Ingstad said that DIU wants to launch Digital OnRamp with a minimum viable product involving at least 1,000 users by the end of the fiscal year.

“We really think this will go like wildfire,” Ingstad said.

This design prioritizes a long-term platform providing essential functions like account management, workflows, user interfaces and robust security and privacy measures. Ingstad said that DIU will select and integrate best-in-class AI tools through regular competitions, ensuring access to the latest advancements without intermediary delays or costs.

“We really see this as the most efficient way that we could run this,” she said.

A Personalized Experience

In addition to under-the-hood metrics from the platform, users provided feedback to DIU during the demo. One private sector user told DIU that the generative AI personalization features provided “very specific answers and very related to my persona.”

“The test users absolutely loved it,” Ingstad said.

Digital OnRamp’s user profile system will also give users the option to set up notifications for new opportunities or solutions. Users can set up an alert for new solicitations or products in the platform.

“They can click on their search if they want to be notified in the future. If there isn’t a match today, there isn’t a match. But maybe there is in two weeks or two months, and they want to be notified,” Ingstad explained.

The platform will also offer users tailored education and resources, including connections to local support offices such as Navy tech bridges and Air Force spark cells.

“This initiative is about helping users navigate a complex landscape, simplifying the discovery process and reducing the time spent seeking opportunities,” Ingstad said.

By streamlining the discovery process and connecting the right solutions with the right needs, Ingstad said that Digital OnRamp will further defense innovation, fostering collaboration and accelerating the delivery of critical technologies to the warfighter at scale.

“[Digital OnRamp] is a force multiplier for the innovation community,” Ingstad said.