2025 Year in Review Highlights SEI Impact in Software, Cyber, AI, and Acquisition for National Security
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March 30, 2026—The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) today released its annual review of noteworthy research and development projects from the previous fiscal year. The 2025 SEI Year in Review highlights some of the SEI’s most impactful work establishing and advancing software as a strategic advantage for national security.
As a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Department of War (DoW) and operated by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the SEI leads and directs research and transition of software engineering, cyber, artificial intelligence (AI), and acquisition transformation at the intersection of academia, industry, and government. The articles in the 2025 issue of the review illustrate how SEI experts enable capabilities across the DoW and other U.S. agencies, from the back office to the front lines.
“The SEI is an effective and efficient conduit to elevate invention by CMU researchers into results relevant to DoW software goals and to transfer national security and defense perspectives into future CMU basic research,” wrote SEI director Paul Nielsen in a foreword to the new release.
The 2025 SEI Year in Review features significant projects our researchers and engineers performed for the federal government from October 2024 through September 2025:
- supporting the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s work in AI reinforcements for beyond-visual-range air combat and compiler technology
- using large language models to accelerate software quality analysis
- testing the efficacy of human–AI teaming for software maintenance
- leveraging generative AI to speed code translation in legacy defense software
- enhancing battlefield situational awareness with social media algorithms
- analyzing applicability of security and zero trust principles for weapon systems
- transitioning the President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition to an agency partner
- developing an AI auto-grader for capture-the-flag cyber competitions
- strengthening foreign infrastructure resilience with cyber training
- integrating frontier AI into Pentagon workflows
- advancing AI for mission
- collaborating with the Defense Innovation Unit
- helping defense programs get on the Software Acquisition Pathway
Read the 2025 SEI Year in Review on our website.
