An IBM-led team, International Technology Alliance (ITA), has won a ten-year $136 million contract to provide research services for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.K. Ministry of Defense.

The alliance will provide R&D services to investigate advanced technology for secure wireless and sensor networks, and alliance will work toward enhancing the effectiveness of military establishments by contributing to their capabilities pertaining to the collection, interpretation and distribution of battlefield information among themselves.

The ITA has organizations primarily operating across four domains, including the U.S. industry, the U.K. industry, the U.S. academic environment, and the UK academic environment. The participants from the U.S. industry include IBM, BBN Technologies, Boeing and Honeywell, while the participants from the U.K. industry include IBM, LogicaCMG and Roke Manor Research.

The entities, which participated under the U.S. academic domain, include Carnegie Mellon University, City University of New York and Columbia University. The entities from the U.K. academic domain include University of Aberdeen, University of Cambridge and University of Cranfield.