The U.S. Department of the Treasury is seeking industry feedback on a proposed contract model designed to establish direct relationships with frontier artificial intelligence and large language model developers.
In a newly issued request for information (RFI), the department outlined plans for a more agile contracting approach to access rapidly evolving AI capabilities, including newly released models and related services. Rather than procuring a fixed set of tools through a one-time acquisition, the department is considering a token-based procurement model to provide sustained, direct access to leading AI companies.
“The primary objective of this acquisition is to establish direct contractual relationships with frontier AI and large language model (LLM) developers in a manner that maximizes flexibility, speed, and adaptability,” the RFI states.
According to the RFI, the model is intended to support mission-driven use cases while allowing the government to adapt to advances in model performance, safety, and functionality over the contract lifecycle.
The department is asking vendors to address considerations such as cloud and on-premises requirements, token definitions and measurement, model access methods, security controls, and contractual mechanisms that would enable the government to benefit from potential downward pricing trends over a five-year period.