Fiddler is proud to announce our selection for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)'s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program. Recently, Domino Data Lab was awarded a $16.5 million APFIT contract as prime vendor to scale the AI infrastructure powering Project AMMO (Automated Machine Learning for Mine Countermeasures Operations). As a key partner in this award, Fiddler is excited to continue our essential work bringing explainable, transparent, and trustworthy AI to national defense operations.
This initiative builds on Fiddler's groundbreaking collaboration with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the U.S. Navy on Project AMMO, where our AI Observability and Security platform played a crucial role in transforming how the military develops, deploys, and maintains mission-critical AI models. Following the project's success, the DIU awarded Fiddler a Success Memo, validating our technology's impact on national security operations.
Bringing Trust to Tactical Edge AI
Project AMMO was created by the Navy and Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to address critical challenges with machine learning models used in unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). These UUVs depend on computer vision-based Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) models to detect underwater threats, but monitoring and improving these models after deployment was proving difficult. Fiddler, alongside Domino, was selected to build an MLOps pipeline that revolutionized how these models are monitored and improved.
Fiddler’s collaboration with the Domino, the U.S. Navy, and the DIU on Project AMMO delivered significant outcomes:
- 97% Reduction in Update Time: Fiddler contributed in establishing a robust MLOps pipeline, slashing model retraining and deployment times and increasing efficiency and enhancing operational readiness.
- Improved Explainability: Explainability features provided granular insights into the ATR models’ decision-making processes, guiding model developers in keeping their models up to date.
- Shipped to Production: Following the successful prototype, Project AMMO transitioned to production with the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC).
A Milestone for Responsible AI in National Security
“This successful implementation of Project AMMO represents a critical inflection point for AI in national security,” said Amit Paka, Co-Founder and COO at Fiddler AI. “At Fiddler, we're proud that our AI Observability and Security platform has earned a Success Memo from the DIU, enabling the U.S. Navy and any service or DoD component to rapidly adapt their underwater threat detection capabilities. This multi-vendor partnership with Domino and others demonstrates how commercial AI innovation can directly strengthen our nation's defense — allowing our warfighters to more easily adapt to undersea threats, while ensuring responsible AI deployment.”
Powering the DoD’s New Era of Software-Defined Warfare
Fiddler’s contribution to Project AMMO exemplifies the kind of commercial innovation this program was designed to support. Through our partnership with Domino and the broader Project AMMO team, we’re showcasing how commercial AI innovation directly strengthens national defense by enabling warfighters to rapidly adapt to underwater threats while practicing responsible AI.
Read case study to learn how Fiddler helped the U.S. Navy slashed AI model update times by 97%.
