Paving the Way to the Modern Internet

ARPA research played a central role in launching the Information Revolution. The agency developed and furthered much of the conceptual basis for the ARPANET—prototypical communications network launched nearly half a century ago—and invented the digital protocols that gave birth to the Internet.

DARPA also provided many of the essential advances that made possible today’s computers and communications systems, including seminal technological achievements that support the speech recognition, touch-screen displays, accelerometers, and wireless capabilities at the core of today’s smartphones and tablets.

DARPA has also long been a leader in the development of artificial intelligence, machine intelligence and semi-autonomous systems. DARPA’s efforts in this domain have focused primarily on military operations, including command and control, but the commercial sector has adopted and expanded upon many of the agency’s results to develop wide-spread applications in fields as diverse as manufacturing, entertainment and education.