Shield AI
- Shield AI unveiled what it called a fully autonomous multirole fighter jet.It uses Hivemind, the AI pilot it previously used to pilot an F-16 through a dogfight.The company says the jet can take off without a runway, from container ships and remote islands.
The AI that powered an F-16 in a dogfight against a manned aircraft is powering a new, fully autonomous fighter jet, its maker said as it unveiled the new aircraft design.
US defense tech unicorn Shield AI unveiled its new X-BAT fighter aircraft on Wednesday. The company says that it can operate without human pilots and without runways. It said it can take off from islands and ships — not just warships, but also container ships.
Armor Harris, Shield AI's senior vice president of aircraft engineering, told Business Insider that the brain for the new aircraft is the company's Hivemind, "the same combat-proven AI pilot we used to fly a modified F-16 through a dogfight," a reference to a landmark 2024 test.
Last year, during a testing exercise, the AI-driven X-62A Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft (VISTA), a modified F-16, went head-to-head with a crewed fighter aircraft in aerial combat. The military never said which aircraft emerged victorious.
In other simulations, the AI beat the human pilot, but this was a different kind of test involving aircraft in the real world. The then Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, was riding in the back of the pilotless fighter aircraft.
Powered by Hivemind, the new X-BAT can complete missions without human pilot involvement and can advance without GPS or reliable communications, Shield AI told Business Insider. Artificial intelligence-enabled systems are considered necessary developments to break through contested areas that traditional crewed aircraft may be unable to navigate safely, or at all.
Pilotless fighters are also not bound by the same design limitations meant to protect a human pilot.
Shield AI said that "unlike legacy crewed aircraft, X-BAT frees human aviators for missions that demand critical human judgment — an essential advantage in today's fast-moving and unpredictable conflict zones."
Shield AI
A pilotless fighter aircraft
Harris said that the X-BAT can also act as a drone wingman, working closely with crewed fighter jets to protect them and expand their overall combat power.
Very interested in what autonomous uncrewed assets can bring to the force, the US Air Force has been investing in Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCAs, that can fly alongside crewed aircraft.
For Increment 1, the Air Force selected General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Anduril Industries to develop two prototypes, both of which have received unique "fighter drone" designations. Additional CCA designs are being presented.
Harris said that the X-BAT was built for "what comes after" the Increment 1 development phase.
He said that this phase of the program has "played a foundational role, and now X-BAT is pushing the envelope with advanced electronic warfare capabilities, greater payload capacity, and extended range that gives combatant commanders geographically distributed long-range fires and effects." This is an area that the military recognizes it needs to catch up on.
Part of the desire for CCAs is affordability. These are attritable warfighting platforms that can support and, if needed, be sacrificed for crewed fighters, which are more expensive and will ultimately be far fewer in number.
Shield AI said that the new X-BAT design "delivers high-end capability for a fraction of the cost of traditional fighter jets."
Filling the fleet with this kind of aircraft makes for a larger, more resilient fleet that can take hits without suffering severe pilot losses or budget-breaking plane losses, a necessity for high-intensity peer-level combat. Shield AI said uncrewed aircraft like these are "reshaping how future conflicts are fought and sustained."
Kendall said last year that "the AI competition is essentially going to determine who's the winner in the next battlefield." And he told BI that the F-16 dogfight was "a transformational moment" that marked the transition from when autonomous air-to-air combat was only "a distant dream" to its emergence as reality.
The company said the X-BAT was developed "to ensure the US and its allies keep pace on the battlefield amid rapid technological change."
Deploying from anywhere
Key to the X-BAT design is its flexibility. Shield AI said it has vertical takeoff and landing with a 2,000-nautical-mile range, "letting it launch from ships, islands, or austere forward sites without carriers, runways, or tankers." That kind of range could prove valuable at overcoming the "tyranny of distance" in the vast Indo-Pacific amid a growing concern about conflict with China.
Shield AI
Shield AI said it was the "only platform in its class" to combine those features.
Big-deck amphibious warships could host up to 60 X-BATs, Harris said, but these aircraft, which have a small footprint and don't require a runway, could also be launched from atypical vessels, like a container ship, he added, "giving commanders the power to project combat airpower from almost anywhere."
It can be used by the US Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Army, or allied forces, Harris said.
The X-Bat was unveiled in front of military leaders and politicians in Washington, DC, on Tuesday
It's unclear if the X-BAT will be the future for US or allied militaries, but forces are increasingly interested in autonomy. European aerospace and defense giant Airbus has also tested its H145 helicopter with Shield AI's Hivemind, which has also been used on a number of other aircraft.
