This sort of thing was only worse in the past and IMO this admin has actually made the largest inroads to resolving this issue which tbh lies primarily in procurement (RFO, FR20x, PA, mandates for automation, shift to COTS, etc). With any luck this will get recompeted

Project 20x looks pretty cool, we're in a similar space and there's probably a ~2y horizon to fix things before the bureaucracy falls to consultocracy. FWIW if you or anyone else building in gov need funding to get stuff off the ground there are plenty of DC-based VCs that are phenomenal, mission oriented and take big swings like this all the time.

I don't know about this particular case, but often the tender process itself is the reason that there's no meaningful competition for these contracts. There are only a handful of companies that can realistically compete for certain types of contracts given the complexity of managing the bidding, certification, etc., and so they get most of the contracts even if they are not something they can actually accomplish, then turn around and rent some bodies from another shop that specializes in providing government-approved contract workers to do the actual work. You can imagine how disconnected the actual bids, deliverables agreements, etc. are when there are two entire private bureaucracies between even the government project manager -- themselves usually detached from the Federal workers who have to use whatever this process creates -- and the people doing the work.

Unfortunately tons of US gov contracts a) are lowest bid and b) only have one applicant