DARPA’s seedlings start at disbelief. The enacted budget is $4.322 billion.

DARPA’s about page now prints the department name in its own type: an independent research and development agency “within the U.S. Department of War (DOW).” On this register that is the name of the department. The page dates the agency to the answer Washington gave Sputnik in 1957, and it states the mission in eight words that are easy to skip: create and prevent technological surprise.

The money is on the same page, under Budgets, and it is smaller than the legend. The President’s FY2027 request is $5.039 billion. The FY2026 enacted budget was $4.322 billion. The funding menu under that figure is the stranger exhibit. Besides multi-year programs, DARPA lists challenges with prizes up to $10 million, and “seedlings that move concepts from ‘disbelief’ to ‘mere doubt.’” That is the agency describing its own intake, not a critic describing it.

Stephen Winchell is named as the 24th director, joined in May 2025. Six technical offices carry the portfolio, among them the Biological Technologies Office that ran Insect Allies. This brief does not retell the internet, GPS, or stealth. Those sentences are also on the about page if you want the agency’s own list. The number to keep is the enacted budget, and the phrase to keep is the seedling line.

Publisher-desk brief of darpa.mil/about. Notice Nearby did not write the budget. Not Legal Publication. Not a newspaper.