Section one: Contracting authority
one.1) Name and addresses
Department for International Trade
Old Admiralty Building
London
SW1A 2DY
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
UK - United Kingdom
Internet address(es)
Main address
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-trade
one.2) Information about joint procurement
The contract is awarded by a central purchasing body
one.3) Communication
Additional information can be obtained from the above-mentioned address
one.4) Type of the contracting authority
Ministry or any other national or federal authority
one.5) Main activity
General public services
Section two: Object
two.1) Scope of the procurement
two.1.1) Title
GSCIP Knowledge Graph
two.1.2) Main CPV code
- 48610000 - Database systems
two.1.3) Type of contract
Supplies
two.1.4) Short description
This PIN is for Market Engagement purposes only. DIT leads a cross-government pilot to test the feasibility and value of combining government and private sector data sets to build global supply chain understanding. At the heart of this pilot is a ring-fenced graph database stored in our own secure Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). This graph database should contain data sets and machine learning software that can interrogate the included data sets, and other data sets which we provide or procure, to probabilistically reveal relationships between products, businesses, and geolocations for global supply chain mapping. In addition to the knowledge graph, the supplier will provide SC cleared data engineering support to integrate additional data sets and maintain the platform.
two.1.5) Estimated total value
Value excluding VAT: £2,000,000
two.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots: No
two.2) Description
two.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)
- 48611000 - Database software package
- 48612000 - Database-management system
- 48613000 - Electronic data management (EDM)
- 48614000 - Data-acquisition system
- 72311100 - Data conversion services
- 72316000 - Data analysis services
- 72321000 - Added-value database services
- 72322000 - Data management services
two.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS codes
- UK - United Kingdom
two.2.4) Description of the procurement
The Global Supply Chains Intelligence Pilot (GSCIP) is a pilot project led by DIT and supported by five other departments which has combined government and private sector data to build detailed global supply chain maps at commodity and company level using a knowledge graph (currently provided by Altana), and graph data analysis and visualisation tools. We are engaging with the market to find potential partners for a further two years of development and testing of this concept (April 2023-March 2025.) We currently have around 25 analysts testing specific use cases across the six departments, but we expect the number of departments and analysts may increase during the next two years and some operational use cases will arise in response to global events.
The current prototype infrastructure comprises a secure digital environment for storing, integrating, and analysing HMG, commercial and open-source data. The environment features graph database capabilities, specialist data visualisation software, and analysis tools, such as Spark SQL, Python and R, for supply chain mapping. The prototype resides within the core DIT infrastructure.
We would like to hear from companies that already have a knowledge graph, data sets, and analysis tools including a User Interface and API, that can be used for supply chain mapping of products, entities, geolocations, and the risks associated with those. The data, software, and tools should be deployed onto our IT infrastructure and/or onto a commercial VPC server that we control and we will require the supplier to integrate additional data sets into the knowledge graph using entity resolution and data fusion processes. Due to the sensitivity of the data, the knowledge graph and data sets will need to be assured by government data assurance processes including ISO27001 or equivalent, an ability to show evidence of a strong security posture, penetration testing by a CHECK service provider, and Government Information Risk and Cyber Security assurance processes. In addition, any supplier staff having access to our copy of the knowledge graph will need to have SC security clearance.
We expect to have a decision on funding for the continuation of the GSCIP in December 2022 and will have limited time to procure the required data and data tools before the current agreements end in March 2023. For this reason, we are only engaging with suppliers that already have the data and tools that we require so that they can be procured in March 2023 and available for use in April 2023.
The estimated value for a knowledge graph and services for the two-year pilot continuation above is only our best current estimate of what our budget will allow. We may be funded at a higher or lower level.
two.2.14) Additional information
For these procurements we are likely to use CCS framework agreements such as G-Cloud 13, Spark DPS or AI DPS. The latter two can be joined at any time: https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6094
https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6200
two.3) Estimated date of publication of contract notice
1 December 2022
Section four. Procedure
four.1) Description
four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes