GSA Releases Draft Framework for IT Services Contract Polaris with Strong Emphasis on Emerging Technologies Including Quantum Computing

(NextGov) The General Services Administration released the draft framework for its new government-wide small business IT services contract, dubbed Polaris, including a list of service offerings covered under the contract and emerging technologies vendors should be prepared to pitch as part of task order competitions.
“The principal nature of any resulting task order procurement must be for IT services,” the document states, “however, ancillary support may be included when it is integral to and necessary for the IT services-based effort.”

While the contract will focus on more traditional government IT areas, Polaris will have a strong emphasis on emerging technologies including:

• Advanced and quantum computing, including cryptography and encryption; secure communications; design of high-performance computers, computer clusters and networks; and quantum machine learning.
• Artificial intelligence, including computer vision, deep learning, machine learning, natural language processing, spatial computing and speech recognition.
• Automation technology, including robotic process automation, automated messaging services, data cleaning scripts, interactive voice response and smart notification.