Today, we are proud to announce that the U.S. Department of War's (DoW) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) has expanded its enterprise agreement with Scale AI, increasing the total potential value from $100 million to $500 million.
This five-fold ceiling increase follows the rapid uptake of our Production Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement since its original award in September 2025. Demand across the Department exceeded the original ceiling, with DoW components leveraging the vehicle to initiate Project Agreements spanning computer vision, generative AI decision-support, and data operations. It reflects the Pentagon's confidence in Scale as a primary AI infrastructure partner and signals the accelerating demand for AI capabilities across the force.
Lowering the Barrier to Enterprise AI
The CDAO Production OTA is specifically designed to bypass the fragmented, multi-year acquisition cycles that have historically slowed innovation. Unlike standard procurement vehicles, the OTA allows any DoW component to route funding to the centralized contracting authority and initiate its own Project Agreement — covering any Scale product, service, or capability — without requiring a new competitive solicitation. This flexibility has been a key driver of adoption since the agreement's original award, and the expansion ensures the vehicle can support the full breadth of the Department's AI ambitions.
Key advantages for Department of War components include:
- Pre-negotiated, volume-based pricing that is substantially more favorable than independent negotiations.
- CDAO co-funding for a portion of the work, further reducing the effective cost to initiating organizations.
- Streamlined Project Agreements that require no new competitive solicitation, allowing teams to move at mission speed.
The agreement has already seen significant uptake across the Services. Customers operating under the CDAO OTA include components from the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as defense agencies and OSW offices — reflecting demand that spans both the operational and institutional elements of the Department.
Under the agreement, DoW components can access Scale's full AI platform:
- Scale Data Engine: Scale's machine learning operations (MLOps) platform to build, test, and deploy computer vision models, powered by expert-labeled, AI-ready data from [Scale's AI Center in St. Louis](https://scale.com/stl). Scale's annotators are trained specifically for defense-domain tasks, from labeling EO/IR and SAR imagery for autonomy programs to generating ground truth for aided target recognition and sensor fusion.
- Scale GenAI Platform (SGP): An end-to-end platform for government builders to fine-tune, test, evaluate, and deploy generative AI models safely and securely on classified networks.
- Scale Donovan: A generative AI decision-making platform built for defense and intelligence operators to turn massive amounts of unstructured data into actionable insights and decision support at mission speed.
- Engineering Capability Development Sprints: Discrete, time-bound, deliverable-based data and software efforts tailored to specific mission requirements.
All capabilities are available across NIPR, SIPR, and JWICS networks.
Advancing the Department of War AI Strategy
This expansion directly supports the Department of War AI Strategy and its focus on building a robust data foundation and creating an agile, iterative pipeline for AI deployment at the tactical edge. Our partnership is designed to deliver on both priorities:
- Robust Data Foundations: Transforming raw, sensitive data into AI-ready assets via our Data Engine.
- Agile Pipelines: Deploying state-of-the-art models in months rather than years, enabling operational AI at the tactical edge.
As we move from small-scale pilots to enterprise-wide deployment, our platform is also designed to help the Department operationalize its Responsible AI principles — ensuring that as we scale these capabilities, they remain reliable, auditable, and trusted by the warfighter. The infrastructure decisions made today will shape U.S. military operational capabilities for the decade ahead. We are honored to deepen our partnership with the CDAO to deliver reliable AI for the Department's most critical missions.
Get Started
DoW components interested in initiating a Project Agreement under the CDAO Production OTA are encouraged to reach out directly to Scale’s Head of Defense: Kathryn Harris (kathryn.harris@scale.com).
Ready to break through your data bottleneck?
Scale's team will match your project to the right experts, fast.
