IBM Neurosynaptic Processing Board

This is a Notice of Proposed Contract Action under FAR Part 15 Contracting by Negotiation and Other than Full and Open Competition (FAR 6.302-1) Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements. This notice is for information only; a solicitation will not be issued. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. No contract will be awarded on the basis of offers received in response to this notice. The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 333411 with a size standard of 1,250 employees.

Brief Description of Requirements:

QTY- 1 NS16e Neurosynaptic Processing board including: the neurosynaptic board, docking station, software and hardware development platforms, and software/firmware framework suitable for machine learning, artificial intelligence, and neural network implementation and research that meets the following specifications:

System Specification:

•IBM TrueNorth NS16e Neurosynaptic Processing Board containing 16 TrueNorth chips, 65,536 neurosynaptic cores, equivalent of 16 million neurons and 256 million synapses.
•Total chip power consumption is 50~100 mW, the NS16e boards will consume approximately 8 Watts each.
•System board will have 16TrueNorth chips.
•A server will be used for up to 4 NS16e boards are configured; software control, firmware control, and system monitoring and control.
•A docking station for configuration and interfacing to when a single NS16e board isrequired.
•System software for system configuration, interfacing, and monitoring.
•SyNAPSE software development environment and tools.
•Corelet libraries for application development.
•Compass scalable architectural simulator for networked 16 chip boards.
•Technical support and system maintenance, and warranty for 1 year.

The Government intends to negotiate a sole-source contract for the purchase of the system described above. The identified sole-source provider/producer of these systems is as follows:

IBM Almaden Research Center
650 Harry Rd
San Jose, California 95120-6001

The new Neurosynaptic system will be integrated with servers in the existing cluster environment, where the NS16e- V2 hardware/software development platforms are running as networked components and the simulator running on existing servers. Using the new development environment, existing models and algorithms will be leveraged to develop high-performance and energy-efficient computing solutions for sensor data analytics and autonomy capabilities.

This is a notice of proposed contract action and NOT a request for competitive proposals. However, all responsible sources may submit a capability statement or proposal, which shall be considered by the agency. All inquiries should be sent by email to Tabitha.Haggart@us.af.mil.

Responses to this notice must be submitted by the date/time listed on the notice. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the Government in future procurements.
Responses received will be evaluated; however a determination by the Government not to compete the proposed procurement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The Government anticipates an award date on or before 30 September 2018.

A Sole Source Justification will be attached to the subsequent Notice of Award in accordance with applicable regulation.

Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate
26 Electronic Parkway
Rome, New York 13441
United States

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