DARPA, the U.S. Defense Department’s research and development arm, awarded the NVIDIA team a four-year contract worth up to $23 million under the new Software Defined Hardware (SDH) program, part of DARPA’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI).

The team includes researchers from NVIDIA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of California, Davis. It plans to demonstrate innovative technologies in hardware and software prototypes during the program.

“The Electronics Resurgence Initiative jump-starts innovations to address the challenges stemming from the end of Moore’s law,” said Steve Keckler, vice president of Architecture Research at NVIDIA. “The technologies that are developed through the ERI program will have a substantial impact on the future of electronic computing devices and NVIDIA’s future products.”

NVIDIA will also collaborate with Cadence Design Systems to apply machine learning algorithms to design automation flows as part of DARPA’s new Intelligent Design of Electronic Assets (IDEA) program.

The program aims to develop a fully automated “no human in the loop” circuit layout generator that enables users with no electronic design expertise to complete physical design of electronic hardware. This effort will add to NVIDIA’s ongoing research into high-productivity integrated circuit design methodology under the DARPA Circuit Realization at Faster Timescales (CRAFT) program.