# IARPA managed to riff on DARPA successfully ### IARPA: Intelligence ARPA The Intelligence ARPA agency started operation in 2007. It currently has 17 program managers as of 2020. On the surface it has all the pieces of the ARPA model: empowered program managers coordinating high-risk high-reward external research. #### Deltas IARPA explicitly does *zero* commercialization - all technology transfers are to intelligence agencies. This stands in contrast to DARPA which transfers to DoD agencies as well as large companies and the VC/Startup Ecosystem. IARPA spends ~25% on testing and validation of the technology its programs create. Given IARPAs focus on computer security and computation in general, this spending both makes sense and is intriguing. What would this look like for other technologies? One failure mode for technology trying to leave the lab is extreme fragility (only working in ideal situations, etc.) and a validation mechanism might cost more in the short term but lead to more robust technology in the long term. IARPA uses contests and tournaments are a first-class tool for generating research. DARPA has run a few tournaments which arguably were quite successful - the grand challenge and the urban challenge arguably catalyzed a phase change in autonomous driving from a research novelty to a potential industry. Despite the outlier results, DARPA tournaments are the exception, not the rule. The reasons for this difference aren’t clear - it may be that computing-based tournaments are easier to coordinate and standardize or simply come down to a matter of culture. Several economists have pointed out that prizes as a research funding mechanism may be underused and when I’ve directly asked DARPA PMs why they don’t use prize mechanisms more often the answer was actually “I don’t know.” IARPA’s regular use of tournaments, DARPA’s infrequent but high impact tournaments, and missing evidence to the contrary suggests that prizes may be a useful place for an organization riffing on the ARPA model to explore. Surprisingly IARPA is much *less* sensitive about its research. Most of IARPAs programs are unclassified, in contrast to ~1/3 of DARPA programs that are classified. IARPA also funds organizations outside the US. My bias is towards tapping in to as many resources as possible so my hunch is that this is a useful change. IARPA has a policy of making sure there is a potential intelligence agency ‘customer’ before undertaking a program. While this seems well-intentioned, it means that IARPA will never be able to change a paradigm unless an intelligence agency already feels like it should be changed. ##### Results IARPA has 17 program managers as of 2020, so in an extremely aggressive scenario, it may have completed 17*3=51 rounds of programs. At a 10% success rate, IARPA funded a lot of quantum computing in the US, including David Wineland who went on to win the Nobel Prize in physics for that same quantum computing work in 2012. It’s not completely roses though - IARPA cut off funding to NIST researchers, including Wineland, because they didn’t want to fund other government organizations. It’s not clear if they resumed that funding or are claiming credit for the Nobel prize research that they funded and then cut off … `As of 2009, IARPA was said to provide a large portion of quantum computing funding resources in the United States.` Has IARPA started any industries yet? No, but if quantum computing becomes as big a deal as people think it could be, I suspect IARPA will play a large role in the stories about it. *Not serious note* Look at this list of IARPA program names and rejoice ye LoTR and Greek Mythology nerds Nerds: * Ithildin * MAEGLIN * SIMARILS * Amon-Hen * Odin * ATHENA * ICArUS * Mercury <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/IARPA+managed+to+riff+on+DARPA+successfully) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/IARPA+managed+to+riff+on+DARPA+successfully)