Airship AI Wins $29 Million in DHS Contracts for Surveillance Software and Hardware

An agency within the Department of Homeland Security is buying a connected package of AI surveillance software and hardware from Airship AI. The company said on October 1, 2026, that it had received $29 million in contracts covering software development, field computing and centralized processing. The awards carry a six-month performance period and support public safety and investigative requirements.

Airship describes the contracts as firm-fixed-price and brand-name-only awards. It does not name the DHS agency or give a contract-by-contract breakdown of the $29 million. The announcement describes the work across three parts of its portfolio: the Acropolis software ecosystem, Outpost AI and Fortress AI computing platforms, and customized hardware systems.

Software work targets the events users want to detect

The Acropolis portion is development work on an existing software ecosystem, rather than simply delivery of more equipment. Airship says it will build capabilities that change how users interact with that software. The work focuses on autonomous collection of sensor data at the edge—near the sensors—and improving confidence in detected events that users define.

That gives the software work two linked tasks: collecting information and assessing the events found within it. Airship describes its technology as the intelligence layer for the customer's larger sensor ecosystem. Improved confidence is a development objective here, not a published accuracy result. The announcement supplies no numerical target or test result for that part of the work.

The hardware connects collection to delivery

The customized hardware portion covers more than a computer running an AI model. Airship says it will deliver turnkey systems that autonomously collect data in the field, securely transport it to designated endpoints and provide AI-derived intelligence in real time. The company presents those functions as a unified solution connecting field operations with enterprise systems.

These systems will support both ongoing operational deployments and several pilots for operational requirements, according to Airship. That places established deployments and pilot work within the same awards. The release does not divide the contract value between those uses or specify how many hardware systems the company will deliver.

Centralized processing, without a third-party cloud

Fortress AI's centralized role does not mean sending sensitive information to a cloud provider. Airship says the platform processes video and sensor data on customer premises, keeping that information under customer control and out of third-party cloud infrastructure. The distinction is about where processing happens and who retains the data, rather than field computing versus cloud computing.

Airship President Paul Allen said the awards extend Fortress AI into enterprise federal law enforcement operations after initial tactical deployments supporting multiple major 2026 National Special Security Events. His account frames the contracts as a move into a larger operational setting for the server platform, alongside additional field appliances—not a replacement of one computing approach with the other.