- Successor vehicle carries a ceiling above $80 billion, up from $48 billion
- Current IAC-MAC sunsets in April 2028
- The Potomac Officers Club will host the 2027 Defense R&D Summit on Feb. 4
The Department of War will hold an industry day Oct. 30 on a research and development contract vehicle carrying a ceiling above $80 billion, nearly double the one it will replace.
The 774th Enterprise Sourcing Squadron will brief attendees on the Next Generation Information Analysis Centers Multiple Award Contract, or NextGen IACMAC, outlining technical priorities and a tentative acquisition strategy, according to a special notice posted on SAM.gov Tuesday. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Critical Technologies will host the session at the Mark Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Registration closes Oct. 26, and attendees need an approved visit access request.
What Would NextGen IACMAC Cover?
The vehicle would connect government, industry, academia, laboratories and nontraditional vendors in what the department calls a competitive research and development ecosystem, spanning discovery through demonstration and transition.
Research priorities in artificial intelligence, quantum, directed energy and hypersonics are shaping defense acquisition. The Potomac Officers Club will host the 2027 Defense R&D Summit on Feb. 4 at the Hilton McLean, where Department of War and national security technology officials will have in-depth discussions on those technologies. Save your seat now.
Event materials identified six critical technology areas: applied AI, biomanufacturing, contested logistics, scaled directed energy, scaled hypersonics, and quantum and battlefield information dominance. DOW said a customer support cell would provide acquisition and requirements development help at no added cost, and put the customer’s shared direct cost at 1 percent to 1.5 percent. It projects an average timeline of five months from initial requirement identification to contract award.
What Does the Current IAC-MAC Vehicle Support?
The current IAC-MAC directly supports the Defense Technical Information Center responsible for military technology knowledge management. DTIC’s IAC network delivers technical analysis and data support to service branches, combatant commands, support agencies and senior Pentagon officials.
Established in 2018 with a $48 billion ceiling, its ordering period will expire in April 2028. The department has obligated $16.9 billion in task orders to date, Washington Technology reported, citing GovTribe data. HII, Booz Allen Hamilton, KBR, the MANTECH TSG-2 joint venture and CACI International are the five largest recipients, accounting for 79 percent of that spending.
How Might the NextGen IACMAC Competition Be Structured?
DOW first outlined plans for a successor in spring 2025 and asked the industry how to structure the recompete, saying at the time it was weighing whether to use one pool or two. The current vehicle runs three pools: unrestricted, small business and nonprofit.
The notice did not state a set-aside approach. Event materials said the department is seeking nontraditional vendors, small businesses and emerging technology companies and that its critical technologies office uses other transaction agreements, Small Business Innovation Research awards and rapid acquisition vehicles to advance the timeline between R&D and capability delivery.
