U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy has selected 15 semi-finalist teams to advance to the next stage of the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Infrastructure (ARPA-I) Ideas and Innovation Challenge (the “Ideas Challenge”). Through the Ideas Challenge, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) seeks bold, transformative solutions to enhance America’s infrastructure, improve safety, and cut costs for the Department. The winners will be awarded a total of $1 million in prizes across two stages (details below). Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, this administration is emboldened to use innovative solutions to address everyday concerns.
“From the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk to the space age, American ingenuity has always led on the frontier of innovation in transportation,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “These projects represent the best and brightest, next generation ideas to propel us forward. I could not be more excited for the future of transportation as America prepares to celebrate our 250 years of excellence.”
For Stage 1 of this challenge, ARPA-I received 448 concept paper submissions. From those, 15 winners were selected as semi-finalists, who will be awarded $20,000 each ($300,000 total) and invited to present and further refine their ideas with business and government stakeholders at the USDOT Innovation Workshop. The Innovation Workshop (“Ideas Bootcamp”) will be held on December 9, 2025 at USDOT Headquarters in Washington D.C.
In Stage 2, semi-finalists from Stage 1 will be eligible to submit a detailed proposal and up to 10 will be selected as finalists to advance to the ARPA-I Ideas Challenge Finals in 2026. The finalists will present their project proposal to a distinguished panel of judges and audience members from the public and private sectors to compete for Stage 2 prizes that total $700,000.
The Ideas Challenge semi-finalists are:
| Concept Title | Team Members | Team Type | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agentic AI for Adaptive and Resilient Middle-Mile Freight Operations | Lacy Greening | Individual | Arizona |
| CivicTwin: Physics-Grounded City-Scale Digital Twins from Real-World Data for Next-Generation Mobility System Simulation | UCLA Mobility Lab | Academia | California |
| Energy in Motion: Atoms on Wheels – Safe, Monitored Transportation of Microreactors | University of Utah | Academia | Utah |
| Generative AI Driven City-Scale Digital Twin for Virtual Testing and Benchmarking of Autonomous Vehicles | University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), SaferDrive AI | Academia | Michigan |
| NavSentinel: A Resilient and Unspoofable GNSS Receiver | TruNav, Llc | Private Entity | Illinois |
| Next-gen Smart Sensors Turn Every Train into an Inspector | MetaRE Inc, Arup | Private Entity | New York |
| Pavement & Airfield Tactical Robotic On-site Locator (PATROL) | Colorado State University | Academia | Colorado |
| PRISM: AI-Powered Dynamic Real-Time Mapping System for Safer AV Operation | University of Tennessee Chattanooga, University of Tennessee Oak Ridge Innovation Institute | Academia | Tennessee |
| Providing a Signal Source of Truth for Safe and Aware Navigation | Tip & Cue, Inc | Private Entity | New York |
| Quantum Cooperative Air Traffic Simulation (Q-CATS) | CNA Corporation | Private Entity | Virginia |
| Rapid Flood Damage Mitigation and Resilience Through Modular Biocement Infrastructure | ARCTOS Technology Solutions, Llc | Private Entity | Ohio |
| SemanticVector: AI-Powered Semantic Compression for 1000x More Data-Efficient Transportation Intelligence | Sikai Chen, Xiaopeng Li | Individual | Wisconsin |
| The Gravity of Infrastructure | Leidos | Private Entity | Virginia |
| TransportationBench: Accelerating Responsible AI Adoption and Transformation through Benchmarking | Numobility, Texas Transportation Institute | Private Entity | Georgia |
| Twin-Guided Robotic Pavement Overlays (T-GRO): Safer, Faster, Cleaner Resurfacing | Yang Lu | Individual | Idaho |
Additional Information:
The ARPA-I Ideas Challenge is a two-stage prize competition for innovators from across the private and public sectors to create a portfolio of potential breakthrough ideas in transportation technology. These ideas will inform the research and development path forward for ARPA-I, USDOT, and the transportation sector.