DARPA Seeks High-Assurance AI and Machine Learning from Industry

The CLARA program aims to create broadly applicable AI systems with enhanced assurance and scalability.

Published on Feb. 26, 2026

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U.S. military researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are seeking proposals from industry to develop high-assurance artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems through the new Compositional Learning-And-Reasoning for AI Complex Systems Engineering (CLARA) program. CLARA aims to combine advanced techniques like higher order logic, probabilistic logic, and hierarchical knowledge representation to create AI systems with greater assurance and scalability than current machine learning approaches.

Why it matters

The military's need for highly reliable and explainable AI has slowed the widespread adoption of the technology. DARPA believes that combining automated reasoning with machine learning can help overcome the limitations of current AI systems, which often struggle with assurance and tractability at scale.

The details

CLARA has two main technical focus areas: developing theories and algorithms for high-assurance machine learning and automated reasoning, as well as creating an open-source software library to demonstrate these approaches. Participants will need to tackle challenges around computational tractability, model adaptability, and scalability of automated reasoning-based machine learning.

  • The CLARA solicitation (DARPA-PA-25-07-02) was issued on February 26, 2026.
  • Proposals are due to DARPA by April 10, 2026.

The players

DARPA

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a government agency that develops emerging technologies for military use.

Benjamin Grosof

The DARPA CLARA program manager, who can be contacted with questions about the solicitation.

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What they’re saying

“The military's need for high-assurance AI is slowing its widespread adoption, and the trade-off between machine learning and automated reasoning is impeding high assurance.”

— DARPA researchers (militaryaerospace.com)

What’s next

Proposals for the CLARA program are due to DARPA by April 10, 2026. The agency will then review submissions and select participants for the two technical focus areas.

The takeaway

DARPA's CLARA program represents the military's push to develop more reliable and scalable AI systems by combining advanced machine learning and automated reasoning techniques. This effort highlights the ongoing challenges around achieving high-assurance AI capabilities that can be widely deployed.