Northrop Grumman gets DARPA Contract to Apply AI to Military Strategy Games

Northrop Grumman Corporation was recently awarded a contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the Gamebreaker program which seeks to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to real-time strategy games to break a complex model or create an imbalance.

“Using AI to exploit engagement models can help to enable intelligent systems that could in turn enhance military strategy,” said Susan Wilson, director, intelligent mission capabilities and advanced technology laboratory, Northrop Grumman.

Northrop Grumman’s Gamebreaker team includes Hazardous Software and Slitherine Software’s Matrix Games. Together will use advanced AI techniques to model and break balance within a highly complex simulator environment called “Command: Modern Operations”.

 “Command Professional Edition is the only war game being analyzed by DARPA in the Gamebreaker program,” said Iain McNeil, CEO, Slitherine Software. “We are very interested to see how the AI behaves and if it manages to identify loopholes that need assessment or it comes up with innovative strategies that are applicable to the real world.”