FAA prices SMART air-traffic AI at $875M

The FAA plans to spend $875 million over 12 years on SMART, an AI platform from Air Space Intelligence meant to help controllers predict traffic flows and conflicts. TechCrunch’s account says the cloud system will launch in Washington, D.C., before expanding and use airline schedules, weather, capacity, and airspace conditions to forecast conflicts. For builders selling AI into government, the figure is a procurement benchmark—not proof of deployment savings—and it sits beside the archive’s warning that federal AI policy can reverse faster than contracts.