The US Army is testing an experimental AI platform designed to dramatically accelerate battlefield planning by reducing decision-making timelines from days or hours to just seconds. The system, known as the Course of Action Generative Pre-trained Transformer (COA-GPT), is intended to help military personnel rapidly develop and adapt operational plans while maintaining human oversight throughout the process.

Developed by researchers at the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory, the Army’s primary fundamental research institution, COA-GPT is being evaluated as part of Project Convergence Capstone 6, the service’s largest experimentation exercise, taking place at Fort Irwin, California. 

The trial will assess how AI can support faster, more adaptable decision-making in future battlefield environments.

Tackling human-AI integration in military operations

The COA-GPT is an experimental AI platform built to speed up mission planning while providing commanders and intelligence teams with a more flexible framework for operational decision-making. 

The system is designed to address one of the military’s biggest challenges in adopting AI: ensuring effective collaboration between soldiers and AI. By combining AI-generated recommendations with human judgment, COA-GPT aims to help military personnel plan and adapt operations more quickly without removing people from the decision-making process.

According to Dr. Amar Marathe, program manager for COA-GPT at DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, the platform combines generative AI with decades of military expertise and established doctrine to help Army leaders and soldiers generate, compare and evaluate different operational planning options. 

He stressed that the goal is not to replace human decision-makers, but to enhance their capabilities. Instead, COA-GPT is designed to fit into existing military planning workflows, enabling personnel to work faster, improve efficiency and make more informed decisions during mission planning.

Interface helps commanders guide autonomous systems

One of the key scientific challenges behind COA-GPT is enabling machines to better understand human intent across teams of soldiers and AI-enabled systems, according to Marathe. Through a partnership with Hyssos Tech, the platform incorporates an advanced graphical interface that allows leaders at different levels of command to communicate with AI more naturally. 

Using tools such as shared maps and visual inputs, commanders can better guide agentic AI systems while reducing miscommunication, cognitive burden and operational friction among personnel.

Marathe further explained that COA-GPT was developed with a flexible, plug-and-play architecture that allows researchers to replace individual components and experiment with new AI capabilities without rebuilding the entire system. This approach enables faster testing, adaptation and integration of emerging technologies as the platform continues to evolve.

Moving forward, the Army will continue refining the COA-GPT testbed through additional soldier feedback and collaboration with industry partners. Researchers will examine how generative AI could reshape the role of Army planning teams, identify the cognitive skills future planners will need and improve workflows to ensure the technology helps maintain a strategic advantage on the battlefield.

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US defense contractor Amentum has secured an $85 million contract to support the modernization of critical infrastructure within the US Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP). 

The three-year agreement will focus on redesigning and upgrading spent fuel examination capabilities at the Naval Reactors Facility in Idaho, a key site responsible for supporting the Navy’s nuclear fleet. The new facility will allow scientists and engineers to analyze used fuel cores, comparing real-world performance data with predictions from advanced design and testing processes. 

The company points out that these efforts will help improve the safety, reliability, and long-term mission capability of the Navy’s nuclear-powered vessels.

Strengthening the Navy’s nuclear fuel evaluation capabilities

According to Mark Whitney, president of Amentum’s energy and environment business, the project reflects the company’s continued focus on providing the engineering expertise and operational support needed to sustain the US Navy’s nuclear-powered fleet. 

By upgrading critical spent fuel examination capabilities, Amentum aims to help the Navy better analyze, optimize, and extend the performance of nuclear fuel cores. The modernization effort is expected to provide engineers and scientists with improved tools and data to support future fleet readiness, safety, and reliability.

Whitney further noted that Amentum’s broader nuclear expertise positions the company to support some of the most complex challenges in the sector. He said the company’s capabilities cover the full nuclear project lifecycle, delivering safe, innovative, and reliable solutions for customers worldwide. 

He also added that Amentum’s integrated global nuclear expertise enables the company to take on demanding projects, including efforts that support the US Navy in maintaining the effectiveness of its nuclear-powered fleet.

Nuclear propulsion program marks decades of innovation and reliability

For more than seven decades, the Navy’s NNPP has remained at the forefront of nuclear technology, developing advanced systems to power the Navy’s global fleet. The program has built a reputation for combining innovation, safety, reliability, and operational efficiency, enabling nuclear-powered vessels to perform critical missions around the world. 

Through continuous research, engineering advancements, and rigorous testing, the NNPP continues to support the long-term performance of the US Navy’s nuclear capabilities, Amentum highlights. A collaboration between the Department of Energy and the Department of the Navy, the NNPP is responsible for overseeing the design, development, and operational support required to sustain the Navy’s nuclear-powered fleet. 

The program plays a central role in maintaining US maritime advantage by ensuring warfighters have access to vessels with exceptional endurance, stealth, responsiveness, and advanced warfighting capabilities. Through its work across the nuclear propulsion lifecycle, the NNPP helps support the reliability of the Navy’s strategic naval assets.

Furthermore, as operator of the world’s largest nuclear-powered fleet, including 11 active aircraft carriers and more than 70 submarines, the Navy relies on programs such as the NNPP and partners like Amentum to support the safety, performance, and long-term sustainability of its nuclear propulsion systems.

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US firm Rescale, a digital engineering platform that combines AI, simulation, and high-performance computing to help R&D and engineering teams design, test, and bring new products to market faster, has received funding under the Genesis Mission, a national initiative led by the US Department of Energy to build an advanced integrated science discovery platform.

As part of the program, Rescale will join Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a funded partner in the Agentic HPC Pipeline Initiative (AHPI). 

The initiative aims to use agentic AI on Rescale’s platform to help accelerate the adoption of national laboratory-developed computing tools and simulations by US industry.

Doubling scientific research output with AI and advanced computing

The Genesis Mission is an ambitious initiative aimed at accelerating scientific and technological breakthroughs by combining artificial intelligence, supercomputing, quantum systems, and advanced scientific instruments into a single research platform. 

Established through an executive order in November 2025, the program brings together the department’s 17 national laboratories and around 40,000 scientists and engineers to advance research in areas including energy, scientific discovery, and national security. 

Department officials have compared the scale and ambition of the initiative to landmark US efforts such as the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program, with the goal of doubling the productivity of the country’s scientific research within the next decade.

The US Department of Energy launched the first Genesis Mission funding round earlier this year, awarding $293 million to projects focused on areas including advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, nuclear energy, and quantum science. The program received more than 8,000 applications, making it the department’s largest-ever funding call.

Rescale’s AHPI was selected for Phase I funding to address a key challenge: helping industry access advanced simulation tools developed by US national laboratories that have often required specialized expertise and infrastructure.

Helping manufacturers access advanced AI-powered simulations

The company will work with three US national laboratories to bring agentic AI capabilities to advanced simulation tools. The project will integrate AI agents into WarpX, LiDO, and Adamantine, codes developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Using the Rescale platform, AI agents will help engineers choose simulation tools, configure inputs, monitor runs, and analyze results. The initiative aims to reduce the time and specialized expertise needed to use these simulations by more than five times, making advanced research capabilities more accessible to US manufacturers.

According to Rescale CEO Joris Poort, the Genesis Mission highlights the importance of making industrial AI technologies available to leading research and development teams that can apply them in real-world applications.

Building on Rescale’s existing partnership with ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, AHPI addresses a common gap: DOE-industry collaborations run for a fixed term, and once they end, partners keep the insight but lose the tools to act on it. AHPI keeps the resulting agentic workflows, surrogate models, and code environments live on Rescale, letting labs and industry keep collaborating long after a project’s funding ends.

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