WASHINGTON — The Army announced today that it is awarding Anduril, along with “several teamed industry partners,” an other transaction authority (OTA) award worth nearly $100 million for the service’s sprawling Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) initiative.
The OTA, for $99.6 million over 11 months, was awarded on behalf of the Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, and Network (PEO C3N). It orders “Team Anduril” to deliver a prototype architecture of NGC2 to the service’s 4th Infantry Division, the primary experimental unit for NGC2.
“NGC2 is not just a capability. It’s a blueprint for how we’ll deliver future Army systems,” Commander of Army Futures Command, Gen. James Rainey, said in the statement. “This award reflects a fundamentally different relationship with industry, built on shared purpose, speed, and trust. By co-developing with our industry partners and putting Soldiers at the center of design, we’re delivering what they need — faster, more integrated, and ready for the fight.”
The NGC2 initiative, announced last year, aims to combine intelligence, C2 and fires all in one system so commanders can have information more readily available. It’s the Army’s own version of the military’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative.
According to a statement from Anduril, “Team Anduril,” consists of companies Palantir, Striveworks, Govini, Instant Connect Enterprise, Research Innovations, Inc. and Microsoft.
“For NGC2, Anduril and its partners will create an ecosystem that can rapidly integrate a range of technologies into a singular architecture so that soldiers can access various kinds of compute, communications, and information processing capabilities all at once. Time-sensitive decisions will be faster, and soldiers will be more connected across Corps to Company,” the company statement read.
The OTA follows an 18-month competitive “experimentation process” which Anduril entered in late 2023, per the statement. Such experimentation includes the company’s participation in the Army’s Project Coverage 5 Capstone (PCC5) event, where several vendors showed off their contributions to NGC2.
“Continuing the momentum of PCC5, the OTA will enable the Army to rapidly scale the prototype at the Division level with the 4th Infantry Division, including multiple brigades, headquarters, and enablers. At PCC6 next summer, the 4th ID plans to utilize the NGC2 prototype equipment as its primary C2 system,” PEO C3N’s statement reads.
The structure of who will be leading NGC2 remains unclear. In December, Mark Kitz, the program executive officer of PEO C3N at the time, told Breaking Defense that there would not be one lead on the initiative, but instead there would be a “team of teams” approach. Today’s announcement infers that Anduril will be a team lead on NGC2.
PEO C3N also announced today that it is holding a competition for other vendors and “vendor teams” through a commercial solutions opening with more OTAs to be awarded later this year. These OTAs will be for NGC2 prototyping for other units, including the 25th Infantry Division and III Corps Headquarters.
“Through the CSO, the Army will maintain a continuous open solicitation with specific “windows” for decision points, providing opportunities for vendor teams, aligning incentives, and continuously onboarding new vendors as the capability evolves,” PEO C3N’s statement read.