[photo credit: Virtualitics]An AI company that grew out of a Caltech astronomy lab now has a partner that needs no introduction. 

Virtualitics, the Pasadena firm built on a decade of research at the California Institute of Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, announced a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI on Wednesday to integrate frontier AI models into its Iris readiness platform. The agreement establishes a framework for collaboration — not a binding contract — targeting government agencies, logistics operations, and supply chains that rely on what the companies call “decision intelligence” for complex workloads, according to a joint press release. 

The collaboration centers on Iris, the agentic AI platform Virtualitics launched in August 2025 to help defense organizations and government agencies act on readiness data. Iris uses AI agents and generative AI to process personnel, equipment, and sustainment data, drawing on the company’s Integrated Readiness Optimization system. Under the memorandum of understanding, OpenAI’s frontier reasoning models would be integrated into those agents, according to the press release. 

“Virtualitics was founded to help leaders make better decisions when the stakes are highest,” Michael Amori, CEO and co-founder of Virtualitics, said in the press release. “Partnering with OpenAI lets us pair our readiness expertise with best-of-breed models, while maintaining the trust, transparency, and rigor our customers require.” 

The company, headquartered at 225 S. Lake Avenue near the Caltech campus, was founded in 2016 by Amori, a Caltech alumnus with a master’s degree in applied physics, along with Caltech professor George Djorgovski and computational staff scientist Ciro Donalek. Their research in AI-driven data visualization at Caltech’s Center for Data Driven Discovery became the foundation of Virtualitics’ technology. The privately held firm has raised $89.34 million, according to CB Insights, and employs between 51 and 200 people, according to LinkedIn. 

Virtualitics’ platform is already used by the U.S. Marine Corps for predictive maintenance and assessing risk around equipment components, according to Nextgov/FCW, which reported on the announcement. Chief Product Officer Aakash Indurkhya, himself a 2016 Caltech graduate in computer science, told the outlet that the partnership amounts to “taking their frontier reasoning models and installing them into the AI agents we’re building.”

“Readiness is the front door for agentic AI in government,” Indurkhya said in the press release. “It’s where the data is rich, the decisions are constant, and the impact compounds, from how a unit trains to how a fleet sustains itself over a decade.” 

The announcement arrives amid a surge in Pentagon engagement with frontier AI firms. OpenAI, along with Anthropic, Google, and xAI, each received $200 million contracts from the Defense Department in July 2025 to supply AI tools and models, according to Nextgov/FCW. Through the Virtualitics partnership, existing customers will gain access to OpenAI’s capabilities as they become available on government security networks, the outlet reported. 

“Organizations operating in mission-critical environments require AI they can trust,” Andrew Keene, head of government partnerships at OpenAI, said in the press release. “Our collaboration with Virtualitics allows for richer, context-specific results supporting effective use of AI where readiness and accuracy matter most.” 

For more information on Virtualitics, visit www.virtualitics.com. The company’s offices are at 225 South Lake Avenue, Suite 120; (626) 714-7155.

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