Air Force Hosts Largest Modeling, Simulation and Training Conference in the World

  • Published
  • By Jim Varhegyi, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Public Affairs
ORLANDO, Fla. (AFLCMC) --- In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, from Dec. 1-4.

More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations.

"Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance" was the conference theme, highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats.

This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's (AFLCMC) Training Directorate, and Col. Corey Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's System Delta 81 (SYD). Their overarching goal was to drive "training transfer" that sustains operational dominance across all domains; in other words, they focused on presenting training solutions that measurably improve real-world mission performance, rather than showcasing technology for its own sake.​

During remarks at the conference's opening ceremony, Stevens highlighted the importance of collaboration across the enterprise.

"These events demonstrate a fundamental truth: when we work together, we can accomplish anything," he said.

"Force readiness is our responsibility; aircraft availability, aircrew proficiency, and the ability to generate combat power at scale are not just metrics, they are the measure of our credibility as a fighting force," Stevens said, referencing a letter written by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach. "We know that without readiness, there is no credibility. Without credibility, there is no deterrence. Without deterrence, there is no peace."

Klopstein reinforced Stevens' remarks when he explained that forums like I/ITSEC are catalysts to the partnerships needed to advance acquisition reform, field new technology, and modernize systems while outpacing our adversaries.

"This year's theme aligns perfectly with Space Force objectives as we look to strengthen our operational capability in the rapidly evolving and highly contested space domain," he said. "Space is no longer just a strategic high ground. It is a critical warfighting domain that is as dynamic as land, sea, air, and cyber…as a warfighting domain, we have to prepare and deliver combat-ready forces that can deter conflicts, defend national interests, and operate decisively in deterrent space."

The overall goal of the conference co-chairs was to ensure that every major technology area at the show - Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML), synthetic environments, data-driven analytics, and open architectures - was framed in terms of its ability to deliver more effective, faster, and more transferable training outcomes.

The conference showed how militaries and partners prepare for conflict in an era of rapid technological change and accelerating threats. The overarching theme positions training not as a supporting function but as a primary determinant of future combat effectiveness and deterrence.

All aspects of the conference treated readiness as something that must be continuously measured, data‑driven, and tightly coupled to real-world operations, rather than a periodic check of legacy qualifications for operations across the enterprise.

One of the challenges the conference planners explored was closing the gap between how fast technology and threats evolve and how slowly traditional training systems and acquisition processes adapt. This means reducing the time from identifying a new operational need to fielding an effective training capability. This urgency shaped the conference agenda: challenge government, industry, and academia to treat experimentation, prototyping, and early fielding as normal, recurring activities rather than exceptional efforts.​​

Technologically, I/ITSEC 2025 placed AI and ML at the heart of "optimized" training. AI/ML are portrayed as engines for adaptive instruction, automated scenario generation, and intelligent tutoring that tailor experiences to individual learners and teams. The aim is not novelty but impact: smarter systems that can detect patterns in performance data, predict where skills may decay, and prescribe targeted remediation long before those gaps appear in real operations.

Synthetic environments extend this vision into rich virtual and mixed-reality battlespaces. High-fidelity, networked simulations and digital twins are presented as essential to rehearsing multi-domain operations at a scale, tempo, and risk level that live training alone cannot support. These environments are expected to blend live and simulated data, enabling forces to train against realistic threats, contested spectrum conditions, and complex urban and maritime settings while preserving scarce live assets.​​

Interoperability and open architectures formed the connective tissue of the conference narrative. All partners in the modeling, simulation, and training community are encouraged to treat open, modular designs and common standards as prerequisites for credible readiness, not optional technical preferences. By enabling systems from different services, coalition partners, and vendors to plug together, the conference planners sought to break down silos, reduce duplication, and allow capabilities that can be upgraded and recombined as missions change.​

This technology focus does not sideline human performance and cognition. Cognitive training, learning engineering, and competency-based assessment are promoted as ways to cultivate agile decision-making under uncertainty, both for individuals and teams. Data-enabled readiness underpins this approach, using detailed performance analytics from training systems to inform force development, talent management, and operational planning.

I/ITSEC 2025 was designed to build a tightly integrated ecosystem in which people, data, and technology continuously reinforce one another to sustain operational dominance.

AI and machine learning are tools used to adapt training to each learner, generate realistic scenarios at scale, and support autonomous and human‑machine teaming concepts. Synthetic environments, including digital twins and high-fidelity virtual worlds, enable blending live data with simulated effects so forces can rehearse multi-domain operations safely and repeatedly.​

Interoperability and open architectures focus on connecting simulators, sensors, and command‑and‑control systems across services, coalition partners, and vendors expanding interoperable simulation architectures and open frameworks (such as emerging defense open standards) so that capabilities can be integrated, upgraded, and reused more easily over time.​

Cognitive training priorities include individual and team decision‑making, learning engineering, and competency‑based assessment to build mental agility under stress. Data-enabled readiness stresses capturing performance data from training systems and turning it into analytics that inform readiness assessments, targeted remediation, and better force design.​

The key to all of it is faster acquisition to streamline pathways, so training and simulation capabilities move from identified need to deployed solution in months or a few years, rather than decades.

During a senior leader panel discussion titled "Breaking Down Barriers", AFLCMC executive director Dennis D'Angelo highlighted the importance of integrating small businesses into acquisition processes in an affordable way while removing bureaucratic barriers to doing business with the government. 

"We noticed throughout the Center that many of our PEOs were doing similar work with both large and small businesses. Much of that work could be considered a duplicative effort," D'Angelo explained. "One of our initiatives is to form a capabilities library made up of compiled data from all of our PEOs as well as from the Air Force Research Lab and Air Force Sustainment Center, so anyone throughout the Air Force can access that information and see how they can better streamline their efforts using processes and information that is already in place or is being worked on."

D'Angelo also mentioned forming a consortium that will stand up early next year, focused on making it easier for programs and supply managers to identify companies doing similar work across different agencies, so they don't have to reinvent the wheel every time they submit a proposal for that work to various agencies.

"Lastly we are championing an integrator function across the Center that serves to bring capabilities to bear across the enterprise, so functions are placed where they need to be at a much faster and deliberate fashion," he said.

On the same panel discussion Stevens referenced remarks given early in the day by William Bailey, who is currently performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (SAF/AQ).

"We heard Mr. Bailey mention earlier today that acquisition is a warfighting function, and I agree. We have to have that warrior ethos mindset with our mission outcome being to produce the capabilities the entire enterprise needs to ensure mission success," he said.

I/ITSEC 2026 is currently scheduled for Nov. 30 – Dec. 4, with several smaller events scheduled in between. 

Man in suit stands on a stage behind podium and gives a speech.

AFLCMC PEO Rodney Stevens Addresses Crowd

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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A Space Force and Air Force general are joined on stage by a man in a black business suit. Holding mics and talking to crowd. Each man has a table tent with his name.

Optimizing Training

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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Image shows a light shining on a floor to make the words Optimizing Training Ensuring Operational Dominance. The carpet is blue.

Conference floor at I/ITSEC Conference

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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Image shows a conference badge with many ribbons that say First Timer, Tired Feet, Happy To Be Here.

Conference Badge for I/ITSEC

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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Four men sit on stage in suits. Banner behind them says Breaking Through Barriers.

Breaking Through Barriers - Conference Panel

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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Man in Air Force jumpsuit uses a flight simulator and V/R googles.

Taking flight via simulator

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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Individuals in Air Force uniforms stand in conference booth that features Air Force and Space Force logos and blue carpet.

Air Force conference booth

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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Men in suits sit in chairs on dark stage. Banner has the I/ITSEC conference logo in blue.

Acquisition Leaders Address I/ITSEC

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
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Image is a sign that says I/ITSEC

I/ITSEC Conference Banner

In association with the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA), the U.S. Department of the Air Force served as lead service for the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference, better known as I/ITSEC 2025, Orlando, Fla., Dec. 1-4, 2025. More than 18,000 people from government, industry, and academia from approximately 55 countries gathered for the conference, which has run annually since 1966. Conference highlights included technical papers, tutorials, professional development workshops, special events, exhibits, and international participation from NATO, Five Eyes partners, and neutral nations. I/ITSEC 2025's theme was "Optimizing Training: Ensuring Operational Dominance," highlighting the need for user-centered training systems that compress the time required to build critical skills while keeping pace with rapidly evolving threats. This year's conference was co-chaired by Rodney Stevens, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Training Directorate, and Col. Cory Klopstein, PEO for the Space Force's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) and Commander, Space Systems Command's Delta 81. (U.S.Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi)
Photo Details / Download Hi-Res