Protopia AI Selected as Awardee on Missile Defense Agency SHIELD Contract Vehicle

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Protopia AI today announced it has been selected as an awardee on the Missile Defense Agency's Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract. SHIELD is a multiple-award contract vehicle with a ceiling of $151 billion, designed to accelerate the delivery of advanced capabilities to the warfighter with increased speed and agility.

Protopia's selection into SHIELD builds on a proven track record of enabling privacy-preserving, production-grade AI in multi-tenant environments where data security, trustworthiness, and operational rigor are essential. The company has previously been awarded multiple competitive Department of War contracts, including recent work with the U.S. Air Force to enable the secure use of proprietary codebases with cost-efficient generative AI for software development teams.

"Being selected as a SHIELD awardee is an important milestone for Protopia AI," said Lt. Gen. Scott McKean (Ret.), Senior Vice President of Federal at Protopia AI. "Across the federal government, agencies are accelerating the adoption of AI, both in the field and in the enterprise, by unlocking the most high-impact data with privacy and operational efficiency at the forefront. Protopia's approach provides a unique capability aligned with that mission, and we look forward to supporting the Missile Defense Agency and its partners through SHIELD."

At the core of Protopia's offering is its proprietary Stained Glass technology, a drop-in privacy layer that eliminates raw data exposure during AI inference. This enables defense and intelligence organizations to unlock their most useful data assets, including personnel files, code, imagery, and video, for the most valuable mission outcomes.

Protopia Stained Glass has been validated across public sector and commercial deployments, including:

• Real-time computer vision in environments with sensitive visual data
• Quality assurance workflows using protected imagery in supply chain and maintenance operations
• Multi-tenant enterprise AI deployments that preserve data privacy by eliminating exposure to infrastructure operators and concurrent tenancies

Together, these deployments demonstrate Protopia's ability to unlock sensitive AI workloads in real-world defense environments and position the company to support advanced missions pursued under SHIELD.

About Protopia AI

Protopia AI unlocks high-value data for AI by eliminating plaintext exposure during AI inference. Its proprietary Stained Glass technology delivers a drop-in privacy layer that preserves model utility and performance while supporting cost-efficient deployment across multi-tenant AI infrastructure. Protopia AI is used by federal agencies, large enterprises, and startups across financial services, healthcare, research, manufacturing, and high-tech industries. Federal customers include the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force Sustainment Center Software Directorate (AFSC/SW).

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SOURCE Protopia AI