xTech competitions run on tight, published windows — miss the white-paper date and you wait for the next round, which may be a year out. Here's the shape of the 2026 slate. Always confirm exact dates on the official RFI, because they shift.
xTech|Edge Strike: Ground ran its submission window into early January and holds finals experimentation around March, awarding up to ~$2M for autonomous ground and launched-effects tech. The AUSA Global Force Symposium in Huntsville (late March) is the ground-force show to attend. Then xTech|Live at eMerge Americas (Miami, April 23–24) offers on-site pitches with a quad-chart deadline around April 3.
Deadlines move fast — line up your engineering evidence early; an Ansys evaluation license takes days, not weeks, to put to work.
See if you qualify for an Ansys eval The MVP playbook →xTech|Phantum holds its finalist pitch around July at the Southwest Mission Acceleration Center in Arizona — a fast, lower-dollar round. xTech|Inversion closes its white-paper window around June 30, pitches finalists in August, and names winners in September with an SBIR invitation attached.
The AUSA Annual Meeting (Washington, DC, October 12–14) is the largest land-power event in North America and a frequent stage for xTech activity. xTech|Kinetic Reach runs its live Soldier exercise and pitch around November, with up to ~$1.5M for force-sustainment tech.
Pick your target competition, then work backward from its white-paper deadline. Leave time to build the engineering evidence — see simulation for Army systems — because that's the part you can't cram the night before.
Official sources: xTech competitions · AUSA meetings. Figures change; confirm on the official page before relying on them.
