Everforth ECS, the federal segment of NYSE-listed Everforth, Inc. (EFOR), has been awarded a three-year, $115 million prime contract from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory (DEVCOM ARL) to support the Nautilus for AI Research and Development program. The award, announced on July 28, 2026 from Fairfax, Virginia, was issued through a competitive broad agency announcement that drew 999 proposals.
What Nautilus Actually Does
Nautilus is DEVCOM ARL's flagship effort to move trusted artificial intelligence from lab experiment to field deployment across contested, bandwidth- and compute-constrained environments. Everforth ECS will handle research, development, testing, evaluation and integration — the full transition-to-mission stack — with an explicit focus on mission assurance, secure development and human-decision-support at the tactical edge.
A New Prime Contract Class For AI-Native Integrators
The award is notable as much for who won as for what it does. Army Contracting Command's Adelphi Division, which is running the deal, has historically favoured incumbent primes; giving an AI-native systems integrator like Everforth ECS the top-line role signals a shift in how the Army wants to buy trusted-AI capability. Donnie Scott, president of Everforth ECS, said the program "creates new opportunities for technical talent across AI development, secure software engineering, systems integration and cybersecurity." Daniel Keller, head of the ECS defense business, said the team's edge is delivering AI in bandwidth- and compute-constrained conditions.
Part Of A Broader Pentagon Push
The contract lands as the Department of War accelerates trusted-AI procurement. It follows Kratos's $156M NNSA counter-drone win, AeroVironment's $500M layered counter-drone deal and the Pentagon's $300M SWAP-USV robot-boat push. Everforth ECS says the Nautilus win will expand its role in defense-AI research, testing and transition-to-mission work and unlock hiring across secure software engineering and AI evaluation.
Reporting based on the Business Wire release and coverage from GovConWire, Army-Technology.com and Virginia Business.