US Navy adds $150m to Shield AI's X-Bat autonomous jet programme

Shield AI has secured another $150 million in commitments from the US Navy for its X-Bat, an autonomous tactical jet that takes off and lands vertically, so it needs no runway. The money is an upward change to an Other Transaction agreement the company already holds with the navy.

Such agreements fall outside standard US government procurement rules, a structure meant to speed up research, development and prototyping.

With the new commitment, Shield AI says it has lined up $400 million for the X-Bat. That includes $50 million awarded earlier under the Defense Innovation Unit's Runway Independent Maritime Expeditionary Strike programme, plus capital raised privately.

The added navy investment follows the Pentagon's announcement that Boeing will build the service's next crewed fighter, a sixth-generation carrier-capable jet designated F/A-XX. According to Shield AI, the stealthy crewed strike aircraft could one day fly alongside the uncrewed X-Bat.

Flight testing of the tailless, blended-wing-body design is due to begin this year under the RIMES project, the company says. In September, Shield AI said test flying and sustainment would be based at Newton City-County airport in Kansas, with production at Des Moines, Washington, south of Seattle. Prototyping happens at a Frisco, Texas site the company calls X-Forge 1. Engine work is handled separately at a GE Aerospace facility in Peebles, Ohio, where a single GE F110 turbofan powers the X-Bat, fitted with the Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust Nozzle thrust-vectoring system.

A full-scale aircraft is in the final stages of production, the company has said, with a second close behind it.