Workload-level confidential computing becomes acquisition-ready via P1SM, giving programs a faster path to pilot with Iron Bank/Big Bang workflows.
QLAD, the workload-level security company making confidential computing usable at scale, today announced it has been assessed “Awardable” in the Department of Defense’s Platform One (P1) Solutions Marketplace, giving programs a faster, low-friction path to pilot workload-level confidential computing for Kubernetes using existing Iron Bank/Big Bang workflows. The P1 Solutions Marketplace is a digital repository of post-competition, 5-minute-long, readily-awardable pitch videos, which address the Government’s greatest requirements in hardware, software, and service solutions.
“Speed and safety aren’t a trade-off; they’re the job,” said Jason Tuschen, CEO of QLAD. “QLAD keeps sensitive AI and mission workloads verifiably safe to run in Kubernetes, even on classified networks, without changing how teams build and ship. Being assessed ‘Awardable’ in the Platform One Solutions Marketplace gives DoD teams a responsible, acquisition-ready path to pilot QLAD and put workload-level security to work on current projects.”
QLAD brings Zero Trust to the workload itself. The platform runs each sensitive Kubernetes pod inside a hardware-backed trusted execution environment (TEE), attests hardware and code before start, and keeps container images encrypted at rest, decrypting only inside the workload’s TEE at runtime with Armored Containers™. QLAD runs OCI-compliant containers as-is and integrates with standard Helm/GitOps workflows. It is compatible with Iron Bank and the Big Bang approach, delivering stronger isolation and evidence without disrupting existing pipelines.
“QLAD protects each workload on its own, so even if a pod is compromised, the blast radius is contained,” said Adam Hughes, CTO of QLAD. “Before anything runs, we use a hardware root of trust to attest the platform and workload, and images stay encrypted at rest, decrypting only inside the attested pod at runtime. Teams keep the Iron Bank containers and CI/CD and GitOps pipelines they already trust, across cloud, on-prem, and the edge. The result is smaller exposure, clearer evidence for continuous Authority to Operate (cATO), and faster, safer pilots, without proprietary SDKs or cloud lock-in.”
For mission owners, QLAD enables secure multi-tenant AI, sharing of sensitive models across units, and pushing attested workloads to the tactical edge. Because the enclave travels with the workload, QLAD is infrastructure-agnostic across on-prem and cloud environments and is designed to support cross-domain workflows with appropriate guards and policies.
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