Shield AI to provide autonomy for US Air Force combat drones
Deep-tech firm Shield AI announced its selection as a mission autonomy provider for the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. Its Hivemind autonomy software will be installed on Anduril's Fury aircraft, enabling autonomous operations for the drone wingman initiative.
- The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program is a major U.S. Air Force initiative to develop autonomous drones that will fly alongside manned fighter jets. The service plans to acquire at least 1,000 of these drones, with projected research and development spending of $5.8 billion through fiscal year 2028. - Anduril's Fury, the airframe selected for this contract, is a high-performance drone capable of reaching speeds of Mach 0.95 and an altitude of 50,000 feet. Originally developed by Blue Force Technologies for adversary air training, Anduril acquired the design and repurposed it for the multi-mission CCA role. - Shield AI's Hivemind software provides the core autonomy, enabling the drone to operate without a human pilot. It is designed to be platform-agnostic and compliant with the government's Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA), which prevents vendor lock-in and allows for rapid software updates from various developers. - The Air Force is pursuing a "software-first" acquisition model with the CCA program, decoupling the mission software from the aircraft hardware. This modular, open-systems approach is intended to foster a competitive ecosystem where the best algorithms can be rapidly deployed to any compliant aircraft. - The CCA initiative is not limited to the Air Force. The U.S. Marine Corps is also actively developing its own CCA capabilities under the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Uncrewed Expeditionary Tactical Aircraft (MUX TACAIR) program, using platforms like the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie and evaluating General Atomics' YFQ-42A. - Shield AI has raised over $1 billion in funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Point72 Ventures, and L3Harris Technologies, reaching a valuation of $5.3 billion. This significant private investment highlights the venture capital interest in the defense technology sector. - Anduril and General Atomics were selected over defense giants like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman for the next phase of the CCA program. This signals a strategic shift towards newer, more agile defense contractors for critical next-generation programs. - The broader strategy behind the CCA program is to achieve "affordable mass," increasing the number of air assets without the high cost and lengthy training associated with manned fighter jets. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has estimated the cost of a single CCA to be between $25-30 million, a fraction of the cost of an F-35.
