Amendment 0001.pdf

Amendment 0001

This Solicitation is hereby amended to provide responses to questions received. As a result, the Statement of Work (SOW) is hereby revised and replaced in its entirety. All other terms and conditions remain the same.

Question 1: Does the Government have the expectation that this is a full-time position for the period of performance? If not, how many hours per week does the Government expect that the key person will be engaged for?

Response to Question 1: Yes, this is a full-time position.

Question 2: Is this position 100% on-site work?

Response to Question 2: Yes.

Question 3: Addendum VI Quote Format: Do bibliographies, acronym lists, compliance matrices, and cross reference indices count against the 20-page Technical Quote limit?

Response to Question 3: No.

Question 4: Addendum VII Quote Content ¶3: Is there a page limit for the résumé submitted for Key Personnel in Volume I?

Response to Question 4: No.

Question 5: Addendum VII Quote Content ¶4: May CPARS reports be attached outside the 20-page Technical Quote limit?

Response to Question 5: Yes. CPARS reports are not included in the 20-page limit.

Question 6: Addendum VI Quote Format - In the Excel price workbook, may we retain live formulas, or must all cells be submitted as values only?

Response to Question 6: Pricing must be submitted as values only.

Question 7: Addendum III Electronic Submission: What is the maximum single e-mail attachment size accepted by NIST’s gateway, and are multiple emails permitted?

Response to Question 7: 20Mb.

Question 8: Addendum III & VI: May we use a secure file transfer service (e.g., DoD SAFE) if our attachments exceed the e mail size cap?

Response to Question 8: No. It is suggested that you send the attachments in multiple emails and request a read receipt.

Question 9: Factor 1 - Demonstrated Prior Experience: Is there any minimum contract value, scope similarity threshold, or customer type that would render a past performance reference unacceptable?

Response to Question 9: Demonstrated prior experience should be recent and relevant in terms of size and scope.

Question 10: Overall Evaluation Method - Will option period pricing be added to the base period to establish Total Evaluated Price for best value determination?

Response to Question 10: Yes, the base period pricing plus the option period pricing will establish the Total Evaluated Price for evaluation purposes.

Question 11: Factor 2 Price: Does the Government anticipate travel or other ODCs, or should all costs be rolled into labor CLINs only?

Response to Question 11: Any proposed ODCs should be listed separately from the labor rates.

Question 12: PWS, Section III. Task 1 – Optimizer Data: Please provide the format, typical file size in GB, and representative schema of quantum channel telemetry that NIST will furnish for model training so we can scope storage, compute, and preprocessing labor.

Response to Question 12: Several Terabytes are acceptable.

Question 13: PWS, Section III. Task 1.3 – Routing Benchmarks: What maximum number of concurrent source destination pairs must our entanglement routing algorithms support for acceptance testing?

Response to Question 13: 100s to 1000s is required to demonstrate scalability

Question 14: PWS, Section II. “Place of Performance”: When off-site work is approved, will real time VPN access to the testbed be provided (and, if so, what typical bandwidth/latency), or will the Government supply only prerecorded data sets?

Response to Question 14: The government provided laptop will have VPN capability.

Question 15: PWS, Section III. Task 3 – Safety Plan: Please provide the official URL or PDF for the NIST Contractor Safety Program that our site-specific Safety Plan must follow, including any required form templates.

Response to Question 15: PWS, Section III. Task 3 has been removed.

Question 16: PWS, Section III. Task 6 (HSPD 12): What average processing time has NIST experienced for Low IT Risk credential issuance so we can build a realistic mobilization schedule?

Response to Question 16: Approximately two (2) weeks.

Question 17: PWS, Section VIII. “Schedule”: What award date is anticipated relative to the 29 Aug 2025 estimated start date so we can confirm staff availability?

Response to Question 17: Award is anticipated by August 22, 20025 or earlier.

Question 18: RFQ page 1 CLIN table: Should CLIN 0001 and 0002 be broken into monthly sub CLINs in our price workbook to match the PWS monthly invoicing cadence?

Response to Question 18: No.

Question 19: CAR 1352.239 71 (Section 508): Do the listed accessibility provisions (1194.21, .22, .26) apply to research code and simulation models delivered solely to NIST, or only to any public facing artifacts?

Response to Question 19: Solely to NIST.

Question 20: NIST Local 53 “Operating Status”: If a government shutdown occurs, will the period of performance be extended at no cost, or must the contractor absorb schedule slippage?

Response to Question 20: More information will be available upon notification of the Government Shutdown.

Question 21: PWS IV General Requirements – IT Security: Must the contractor produce a standalone Information System Security Plan (ISSP) for any software hosted on NIST networks, or will compliance be covered under NIST’s existing authority to operate?

Response to Question 21: The contractor does not need to produce a standalone ISSP for any software hosted on the NIST network.

Question 22: PWS, Section I. Background & General Requirements: Please confirm that all project data, models, and code will be unclassified and not subject to ITAR/EAR export controls so we can determine any licensing and staffing constraints.

Response to Question 22: Yes, unclassified

Question 23: Attachment B - FAR 52.204 25 & 52.204 27 clauses: If the contractor brings its own network or computing hardware on site, must we furnish documentation that the equipment is free of covered telecommunications components or ByteDance covered applications prior to installation?

Response to Question 23: Only NIST equipment is allowed on campus.

Question 24: PWS, Section III. Task 1: Please specify quantitative acceptance thresholds (e.g., maximum allowable quantum bit error rate or minimum visibility improvement) that the Phase 1 Quantum Network Optimizer must achieve for deliverable acceptance.

Response to Question 24: Visibility above 0.90.