Exclusive first look at Shield AI’s X-Bat AI-piloted fighter drone
Shield AI is trying to shake up the defense industry.
The company, which is valued at $5.3 billion after providing $240 million in the last financing round, is preparing to introduce its new generation autonomous warplane, known as X-Bat, on Wednesday.
CNBC had exclusive access to the company’s headquarters ahead of the launch.
Shield AI says the drone will have a jet engine, have a range of 2,000 miles, be able to fly up to 50,000 feet, and be capable of taking off and landing vertically, allowing it to operate in remote locations without a runway, such as a ship in the middle of the ocean.
X-Bat will be driven by an artificial intelligence software called Hivemind developed by Shield AI. The company now attributes much of its future to artificial intelligence development.
“Software is the cornerstone and foundation of everything we do,” said Gary Steele, CEO of Shield AI. “Ultimately this will be the long-term growth driver of the business because it enables the development of the next generation aircraft.”
Shield AI ranks 38th on the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 list.
X-Bat combines some of the defense industry’s most advanced technologies in a single combat aircraft. In the early 1950s, experimental aircraft with vertical take-off and landing capabilities were built, but pilots were needed for these. Shield AI has also used Hivemind to autonomously fly the F-16, one of the most widely used modern fighter jets.
“But those two things—AI-piloted and vertical takeoff, launch, and landing—have never come together in the form of a next-generation aircraft,” said Brandon Tseng, president and co-founder of Shield AI.
The company says it’s on track to produce the X-Bat for about $27 million; this is a fraction of the typical cost of advanced military aircraft. For example, the F-35 fighter jet currently used by the US government and its allies, cost more than $100 million to produce.
Unlike Shield AI’s previous aircraft, the X-Bat is designed for combat and can be equipped with missiles.
“Fundamentally, we believe we can save the lives of service members by reducing the risk of putting people in harm’s way,” Steele said. “What I’m particularly excited about is the mission we’ve undertaken and the opportunity it opens up from a business perspective.”
Shield AI has been around since 2015 and has already signed some major defense contracts. The company signed a contract worth approximately 200 million dollars with the US coast guard for the drone called V-Bat, which it produced in 2024.
But the startup is still proving itself in a competitive industry. Although growing rapidly, the company is relatively small compared to its defensive premiums. LockheedMartin And Northrop Grumman and its biggest startup competitor, Anduril, valued at over $30 billion.
Despite generating billions of dollars in revenue, Shield is not yet profitable. According to Forbes report, in 2023 He said the company is on track to become profitable by 2025. But those goals were derailed in 2023 when a U.S. service member’s fingers were partially amputated during a Shield AI drone landing demonstration.
“There has been some loss of customer confidence throughout this process,” Steele said. “But I think we’ve done a phenomenal job of recovering from this and regaining momentum. And as we sit here today, we feel very confident in our ability to deliver safe, great products.”
Drones were used in war zones As early as World War I, however, their prevalence has increased significantly in recent years. The war in Ukraine helped demonstrate to the public the scale and pervasiveness of drone use on the battlefield today.
“From what we’ve seen from the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, these are absolutely important weapons tactically, operationally and strategically,” said Oleksandra Molloy, drone expert and senior aviation instructor at UNSW Canberra. “We’ve seen a lack of these systems in the United States, and especially we haven’t seen the presence of a lot of American companies on the actual battlefield.”
But the US government is now trying to change that. In June 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order stating: American Unleashes Drone Domination It aims to accelerate the commercialization of drone technologies and integrate them into the National Airspace System. Although no dollar amount is directly attached to this order, Big Beautiful Bill It has allocated billions of dollars to unmanned aerial systems and the development of artificial intelligence.
“We must strengthen the defense industrial base with the same development tools, infrastructure and pipelines that Shield AI uses to deliver AI autonomy,” Tseng said. “We work directly with the world’s largest defense prime contractors. We want to see them be extremely successful in building artificial intelligence and autonomy, because at the end of the day, that’s what the warfighter needs. That’s what the United States and our allies need.”
Watch the video to learn more about how Shield AI is making a name for itself in the defense industry.
