Sovereign Defense Cloud Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO)

The Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is issuing a Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) pursuant to DFARS Subpart 212.70.

Under a CSO, the ERDC may competitively award proposals received in response to a general solicitation, similar to a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), to acquire innovative commercial products, technologies, or services based on a review of solutions by scientific, technological, or other subject matter expert peers within the ERDC. “Innovative,” for CSO purposes, means any new technology, process, or method, including research and development (R&D), or any new application of an existing technology, process, or method.

Under this CSO, all products, technologies, and services shall be treated as commercial items; products, technologies, and services do not have to be “commercially available” to be submitted in response to this solicitation. If the solution meets the requirements of the regulation, the solution is treated as commercial whereby the Contracting Officer will utilize commercial procedures to develop and execute the resultant award.

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) seeks to accelerate the transformation of the HPCMP into a cloud-forward ecosystem that redefines user experience, workflows, and infrastructure to meet the evolving needs of the government.

This initiative seeks to foster innovation by encouraging participants to envision and design a future-ready HPCMP platform that integrates emerging technologies, modern cloud principles, and advanced architectures to deliver a resilient, scalable, and secure solution.

The High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP)’s current computing ecosystem cannot keep pace with rapidly evolving mission and technology demands, creating fragmented user experiences, manual workflows, and limited scalability across government and commercial resources.

The environment lacks the portability, interoperability, and automation needed to securely deliver HPC services in a hybrid model without vendor dependence, risking reduced mission responsiveness, higher lifecycle costs, and weakened long-term sustainability. This project aims to identify innovative solutions that will enable the HPCMP to modernize its user experience, enable a hybrid cloud architecture, automate workflows, and integrate a secure data fabric, while preventing vendor lock-in.

The objective is not only to modernize the HPCMP, but to build a capability and business model that is strategically advantageous to the government by rethinking foundational elements such as data storage, processing, security, and accessibility. The desired outcome is a sovereign, cloud-enabled, AI-driven platform that empowers the government to maintain technological superiority.

Go to https://www.erdcwerx.org/sovereign-defense-cloud-for-high-performance-computing/ and select "Commercial solutions Opening" under the header titled "Select a Submission Type" for all of the CSO details and submission requirements. All solutions must be submitted through the ERDCWERX platform. All resultant contracts will be firm-fixed price. All items, technologies, and services (including research and development) procured via this CSO are treated as commercial.

Applicants from universities and/or non-profit organizations should be aware that commercial clauses will be integrated into the award and should coordinate proposals with associated legal counsel prior to submission.