Support from Florida Institute of Technology, INC on Foundational Document and Engineering Data Infrastructure

NASA Shared Services Center issued a sole-source Special Notice on August 17, 2026, announcing its intent to award a contract to Florida Institute of Technology, Inc. for support on Foundational Document and Engineering Data Infrastructure, with a response deadline of August 19, 2026, at 7:00 a.m. Central Standard Time.

The procurement is restricted to a single source under FAR 12.102(a) authority. NASA's market research determined that Florida Institute of Technology possesses specialized expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning applications for small-data-set problem-solving that no competing vendor meets or exceeds. The justification emphasizes that limited published research exists on AI/ML applications using small-n datasets outside IT security, and none addresses NASA's specific requirements. Engaging an alternative vendor would create substantial additional cost and schedule risk from retraining and verification, exceeding available funding.

The 12-month contract, running September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2027, will establish a production-ready AI-assisted engineering standards and data access platform. Deliverables include migrating and enhancing a Copilot Studio Standards Agent and Power BI dashboard to NASA-approved production environments, inventorying Office of Chief Engineer workbooks and data quality issues, building a scalable data architecture with NASA-approved database services, establishing staging and curation workflows, documenting read-only APIs, and producing a benchmark and lessons-learned report. Performance occurs at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida.

Interested organizations may submit written capabilities and qualifications to Shanna L. Patterson (Shanna.L.Patterson@nasa.gov) by the deadline. Submissions are evaluated solely to determine whether to compete the procurement; the government retains final discretion to compete. NAICS code is 611310; PSC is AF21.