Biden Administration to Hold Contest to Increase AI Use in Cybersecurity

The Biden administration is putting up a total of $25.5 million in prize money for a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-led competition to address software vulnerabilities using artificial intelligence. Of that sum, DARPA has set $7 million aside for small business participants.

A qualifying event for the AI Cyber Challenge will take place in spring 2024, after which the top 20 teams will advance to the semifinal stage at DEF CON 2024. From there, five will receive cash and proceed to the finals at the DEF CON hacker convention in 2025.

The competition is expected to focus on open-source software and will receive advisory support from the Linux Foundation’s Open Source Security Foundation.

Rob McHenry, deputy director of DARPA, said the competition will help the federal government secure the software development lifecycle and could have benefits beyond that.

Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, told FedScoop that the challenge winners’ solutions will be used to accelerate vulnerability detection and repair efforts. She added that the government is interested in ways to address energy grid bugs and transportation signaling systems.

Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI will make their capabilities available for the competition, FedScoop reported.