Autonomous weapons, surveillance systems, defense contractors, AI warfare, and the technologies reshaping national security.
The Air Force's autonomous fighter program has crossed the AI proof point. Now the real race is test tempo, software assurance, and affordable production at scale.
Airbus and Frankenburg Technologies completed the first live intercept of a one-way attack drone using a reusable autonomous interceptor and a sub-2kg guided missile — introducing a new cost curve to counter-drone warfare and NATO air defense.
Three weeks after the PrSM fired its first shots over Iran in Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon signed framework agreements with Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, and Honeywell to quadruple PrSM and THAAD production — placing the defense industrial base on a wartime footing.
For twelve years the West trained Ukraine. Now Ukraine is training the West — deploying 228 counter-drone specialists to Gulf states in exchange for Patriot missiles, while Germany becomes the first NATO member to formally invite Ukrainian military instructors. Inside the most consequential role reversal in modern military history.
The Pentagon confirmed the GARC autonomous speedboat has been deployed in Operation Epic Fury — 450 hours and 2,200 nautical miles of active maritime patrols. The age of autonomous naval warfare has officially begun.
The U.S. Army received its first H-60Mx Black Hawk equipped with Sikorsky's MATRIX autonomy suite — capable of flying with zero crew aboard. The primary testbed for the SAFE program that could autonomize the entire Black Hawk fleet.
The Navy awarded Hadrian a $900M contract to build AI-powered automated factories for submarine components — a bet that robotics and the Opus platform can solve the workforce crisis threatening U.S. undersea dominance.
A Pentagon memo designates Palantir's Maven Smart System as the DoD's primary "Program of Record" for AI-enabled battlefield intelligence — officially making it the AI backbone connecting sensors, analysts, and commanders across all U.S. military branches.
The U.S. Navy has 52 ships stuck in maintenance and only 41% on-time repair rates. Gecko Robotics' AI-powered wall-climbing robots identify repairs 50x faster than humans — and a new $71M GSA contract opens access to all DOD branches.
Ukraine opened its real battlefield drone data to allies and defense companies for AI model training — millions of annotated combat videos from tens of thousands of missions. The world's first program of its kind reframes Ukraine as the globe's most valuable military AI training data repository.
Secretary Phelan stood up five new PAE organizations Monday, formalizing the Navy's most sweeping procurement overhaul in decades — with the PAE RAS already consolidating $19B in drone and autonomous weapons programs under a single chain of command.
The YFQ-44A "Fury" switched between Shield AI's Hivemind and Anduril's Lattice mid-flight over the Mojave — the first proof of the Air Force's open A-GRA framework and its plan for 1,000 autonomous wingmen by 2030.