Navitas Semiconductor was one of the stock market's hottest artificial-intelligence plays earlier this year. After a recent slump, things look to be on the up again after the company was selected for an Army project to develop power-chip technology.

Navitas shares were rising 12% to $13.15 in Tuesday's premarket after the news was announced late Monday. That's still a ways off the highs of more than $30 a share it reached briefly in May when investors piled into power chips as the next big play on AI supply chains.

Since then things have gotten trickier as the company reported quarterly losses and has been involved in a patent dispute with peer Wolfspeed.

So it is a relief for shareholders to see Navitas named to the ALATTIS project to develop, execute and validate a novel domestic manufacturing process for ultra-high-voltage semiconductor devices in military hardware.

"The ALATTIS award marks a significant milestone in advancing ultra-high-voltage silicon carbide (SiC) power devices," said Siddarth Sundaresan, Navitas' chief technology officer, in a statement. "

No financial details of the project were disclosed and the major driver for the stock is still likely to be around its role in helping to power AI data centers rather than military equipment. Still, it's something that could help get the shares back on track.