AI testing event returns to Hidalgo County training site

Playas is back on the map for military technology, and Hidalgo County has reason to pay attention. Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division returned to the Playas Research and Training Center for the third annual Robust AI Test Event, using the remote site’s houses, roads and utilities to test artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools in field conditions.

The event matters because Playas is no ordinary training ground. New Mexico Tech operates the center in the former company town of Playas, a place that once held about 1,500 residents and was purchased from Phelps Dodge Corporation for $5 million after the town declined. Today, the site spans several thousand acres in Hidalgo County and includes more than 200 homes and buildings, a classroom complex, conference center, community center, gyms, basketball and tennis courts, and a larger high-desert training area.

At the heart of the attraction is the “play” area, where 185 houses have power and fiber connections for research and testing. That kind of infrastructure, paired with a secluded setting and a suburban backdrop, gives defense researchers, industry teams and academics something unusual: a realistic place to run AI experiments without the security and logistical limits of a live military installation.

RAITE, which started in 2023, has grown into an annual unclassified cyber-physical red team, blue team event meant to push robust and resilient AI for defense applications. NSWC Crane has said the exercise is built so academia, industry and government can work together in real-world scenarios, and more than 50 organizations were selected to participate in the 2025 cycle. That year’s kickoff was publicly listed for May 28, with scenario-specific exercises set for late October in Playas.

The 2025 test tracks were broad and increasingly technical: multimodal data, including computer vision and radar; cyber-enabled AI networks; unmanned systems collaboration; environment interaction; and a dedicated large-language-model test-and-evaluation track. Those scenarios point to a defense community trying to measure not just whether AI works, but whether it can stay reliable when sensors, networks and autonomous systems are all interacting at once.

For Hidalgo County, the significance goes beyond a single event calendar. Each return visit by NSWC Crane, New Mexico Tech and their partners strengthens Playas’ standing as a recurring strategic asset for defense research and training. That can bring outside spending, specialized contracts and continued use of local infrastructure, while tying the county’s long-term economic future more closely to national security testing.