Supply chain and third-party risk AI company Exiger and MetalMiner, a metal commodities price intelligence brand, announced Wednesday that they have been selected by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to support the Open Price Exploration for National Security (OPEN) program.
The research and development program, in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), aims to enhance supply chain resilience and national security through the development of technology that improves transparency in critical commodity pricing and supply, demand, and capacity forecasting.
“Base and rare earth metals and other key minerals are vital to U.S. defense operations and national security. But, opacity in these complex markets creates barriers to supply chain resilience, Department of Defense readiness, and economic competitiveness,” Brandon Daniels, Exiger CEO, said in a media statement. “We’re honored to be selected by DARPA and to partner with MetalMiner to leverage Exiger’s advanced AI and cognitive computing capabilities to provide supply chain visibility that supports this critical program.”
Exiger and MetalMiner will collaborate on technology development, combining MetalMiner’s deep expertise in commodities markets and Exiger’s experience managing multi-tier supply chains. Exiger’s proprietary, real-time supply chain data will enhance MetalMiner’s pricing models and forecasting algorithms.
“We’re proud to work with Exiger to architect new solutions for DARPA that seek to drive long-term stability and informed decision-making in the commodities market,” said MetalMiner CEO Lisa Reisman. “The combination of Exiger’s cognitive capabilities and MetalMiner’s time series forecasting ability will introduce a new level of accuracy, insight, and sophistication to market pricing and forecasting.”
OPEN is structured as a single-phase, 24-month effort that will consist of a seven-month base period with two options.
Earlier this month, Exiger announced the acquisition of Versed AI. Born out of the University of Cambridge’s Language Technology Lab, Versed AI’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology accelerates the process of extracting and aggregating multi-tier supplier networks, creating automated bills of material (BOM), and generating proprietary value chain graph data.
