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MarketplacesNovember 3, 2026· 7 min read

CDAO's Super Intelligence Open Topic Runs Through Tradewinds

K

Kevin Ross

Co-Founder & CEO

The DoW's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) just told small businesses where the candidates for its next big SBIR topic will come from: the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace.

This week, CDAO announced that in FY27 it intends to publish a Direct-to-Phase II Open Topic for Super Intelligence (SI), and that it expects to draw from awardable Tradewinds solutions as the candidate pool. Companies not yet on the marketplace were invited to submit video pitches now, ahead of the solicitation.

If you've been waiting for a reason to get on Tradewinds, this is it. The companies that are awardable when the topic opens are the ones sitting in CDAO's candidate pool.

What CDAO actually announced

The announcement is short, but it packs in three things worth reading closely.

  1. A new SBIR topic is coming. In FY27, CDAO plans to work with the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering's Office for Small Business Innovation to publish a Direct-to-Phase II Open Topic for Super Intelligence.
  2. Tradewinds is the candidate pool. CDAO expects to draw on awardable solutions on the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace as the pool for eligible SI work.
  3. The door is open now. Small businesses that may qualify under SBIR and aren't on the marketplace yet are welcome to submit video pitches to Tradewinds ahead of the solicitation.

Two terms do a lot of work here. Direct-to-Phase II means a company can skip Phase I if it has already proven feasibility outside the SBIR program, and go straight to the larger Phase II award. An open topic means the government describes the problem space broadly and lets companies propose their own approach, instead of writing a narrow requirement.

The timing matters too. FY27 started on October 1, so the topic could drop any time in the next eleven months. And the SBIR program behind it is on solid ground again: Congress reauthorized SBIR and STTR in April 2026 through September 2031, after a six-month lapse that froze new awards.

Why Tradewinds is the on-ramp

Tradewinds is CDAO's marketplace of post-competition, readily awardable pitch videos. Once a video is assessed Awardable, DoW users can search for it, watch it, and contact the company directly. The competition already happened, so the buyer gets to skip it.

CDAO is now pointing that same pool at a new SBIR topic. Instead of starting from a stack of cold proposals, it plans to start with companies that have already been vetted. If you're on the marketplace with a relevant capability, you're in the pool. If you're not, you're watching from the stands.

The calendar is the part most companies underestimate. Tradewinds runs on a monthly cycle:

  1. Submissions close at noon Eastern on the last day of each month.
  2. A panel assesses that month's videos within the first two weeks after the close.
  3. Results and feedback post on the last day of the following month.

A video submitted by November 30 gets its answer by December 31. Miss the cutoff and you wait another month. Need to resubmit after feedback, and that's another full cycle. Add the weeks it takes to write, shoot and edit a good video, and a company starting from scratch today is a couple of months away from awardable.

That still fits inside FY27. But the companies that start now will be in the pool when the topic drops. The ones that wait for the solicitation may not be.

Awardable status pays off beyond this one topic, too: any DoW buyer searching the marketplace can find you. And if you already hold an SBIR or STTR award in AI, digital or data, look at the marketplace's separate SBIR/STTR Aisle, which lists Phase III-eligible work through its own process.

The fine print: awardable is not the same as SBIR-eligible

CDAO was careful to set expectations, and every company reading this should take them at face value.

  • Awardable does not mean eligible. A Tradewinds listing doesn't guarantee eligibility under the SBIR topic.
  • Not everyone gets a contract. CDAO doesn't intend to award contracts to every company that submits an SBIR proposal.
  • The normal process still applies. SBIR eligibility gets decided through the standard DoW solicitation and evaluation process.

Put plainly: Tradewinds gets you on the field. It doesn't win the game. When the topic opens, you'll still need to qualify and write a Phase II proposal that beats the other companies in the pool.

Three things to check now, not later:

  • Size and ownership. SBIR awardees are U.S. for-profit companies with 500 or fewer employees, including affiliates, and more than 50 percent owned and controlled by U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Majority VC-owned companies can qualify at agencies that opt in, as long as no single fund holds a majority.
  • Feasibility evidence. Direct-to-Phase II asks you to show Phase I-type feasibility you've already done. Line up the test data, pilots and demos that prove it.
  • Foreign ties. The 2026 reauthorization added screening for foreign affiliations among applicants, owners and key personnel. Know what's on your cap table before an evaluator asks.

What a strong Tradewinds video pitch needs

Tradewinds keeps the format simple. Doing it well is harder than it looks. Here's what the marketplace asks for:

  • Five minutes, hard stop. Videos over 5:00 aren't assessed.
  • The problem first. Define the mission problem before you show what you built.
  • How you solve it. Show the capability working against that problem, not a feature tour.
  • Business model. Explain how the government buys it, without non-public pricing.
  • Technology readiness level. At TRL 1 to 5, lay out your maturation plan. At TRL 6 to 9, show a demonstration or case study.
  • Dependencies. If it needs other hardware, software, licenses or services to work, say so and explain how you manage the risk.
  • One capability per video. Joint submissions are fine, but name the lead organization.

A panel matched to your technical area scores each video on clarity of communication, technical merit and mission relevance. Once a video is awardable, you can't edit it. Updates mean a new video, so get the first one right.

In our experience, most videos that miss don't miss on the technology. They miss on the story: five minutes of features with no clear mission problem, or a slick demo with no answer for how the government buys it.

Here's the part that matters for the SI topic. The demo or case study you put in front of the Tradewinds panel is the same kind of feasibility evidence a Direct-to-Phase II proposal will ask for. Build the video right and it does double duty.

Get on the marketplace before the topic drops

Clipper Defense builds Tradewinds and Platform One submissions for companies that want awardable status without spending months learning the process the hard way. We write the script around what the panel scores, produce and edit the video, and prepare the written submission fields so the package goes in clean. Both marketplaces accept hardware as well as software, so this isn't only a play for code.

Our team brings decades of experience across the military and the defense industrial base. We know how a mission problem needs to sound to the people evaluating it, and we know where a five-minute pitch loses them.

Awardable is the starting line, not the finish. Once you're listed, our Fractional Business Development team can put your capability in front of the program offices and buyers who need it, so the listing turns into real pipeline.

If the SI topic is on your radar, or you want awardable status working for you across FY27, talk to us about Tradewinds & Platform One Submissions. Tradewinds closes submissions on the last day of every month, and every cutoff you miss pushes your result back another month.

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