U.S. Air Force scouts companies to build its next robot fighter jet

The U.S. Department of the Air Force published a market research notice this week seeking companies capable of designing, developing, prototyping, manufacturing and fielding what it calls a Semi-Autonomous Collaborative Platform, government shorthand for an uncrewed jet aircraft smart enough to fly and fight alongside a piloted fighter without a human controlling every move.

The notice, issued by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Fighter and Advanced Aircraft division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, carries a formal label the Air Force calls a Sources Sought synopsis, a specific type of government notice that exists purely to identify which companies could theoretically do the work, not to actually buy anything yet.

The Air Force made that distinction explicit in the notice itself, stating plainly that the announcement does not obligate the government to anything and that the service has no intention of awarding a contract or paying for any information companies submit in response, a legal formality that nonetheless carries real weight, since it signals the Air Force is still gathering options rather than locking in a plan.

This kind of aircraft, known across the Pentagon by the acronym ACP for Autonomous Collaborative Platform, represents one of the most closely watched shifts in American airpower in decades. Rather than flying like a traditional drone piloted remotely by an operator watching a video feed, an ACP uses onboard autonomy and artificial intelligence to navigate, maneuver and even employ weapons largely on its own, with a human pilot in a crewed fighter such as an F-35 or F-22 acting more like a mission commander directing a team than a joystick operator controlling every input.

The U.S. Air Force has already pushed this concept well past the drawing board. General Atomics flew its YFQ-42A prototype for the first time in August 2025, and Northrop Grumman’s own semi-autonomous prototype, originally developed under the internal name Project Talon, earned the official designation YFQ-48A in December 2025, both aircraft representing the opening round of a broader effort the Air Force calls Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA.

That first round, known as Increment 1, is already moving from prototype flights toward actual production, with the Air Force awarding production contracts to Anduril and General Atomics in June 2026 covering the first 150 aircraft and delivery expected before the end of the decade, according to program tracking published by Shephard Media. But the Air Force has made no secret of wanting far more than 150 of these aircraft eventually, with senior officials signaling ambitions to field somewhere between several hundred and roughly 1,000 CCAs by the early 2030s, a scale that would require bringing in additional manufacturers well beyond the handful of companies that won the earliest contracts. This week’s Sources Sought notice for a Next Generation ACP fits squarely into that broader push, functioning as an early step toward identifying which companies might compete for the increments still to come after the current production round wraps up.

The reasoning behind the entire program traces back to a blunt strategic problem the Air Force has been wrestling with for years: crewed fighters alone, no matter how advanced, cannot generate enough combat mass to reliably outnumber and outlast a determined adversary like China in a prolonged fight. Building enough traditional manned fighters to match that kind of numerical challenge would cost more than Congress has shown any appetite to fund, so the Air Force settled on a cheaper alternative, pairing a smaller number of expensive, sophisticated piloted jets with a much larger number of less expensive, semi-autonomous aircraft that can absorb risk, extend sensor range, carry additional weapons and, if necessary, get shot down without costing a pilot’s life. Air Force leadership has described this affordable mass approach as fundamentally changing the way the service expects to fight future air campaigns, a philosophy reinforced by the branch’s own engine development push, since GE Aerospace received a contract in May 2026 to mature a new engine specifically built for the ACP program’s medium thrust class of aircraft, a sign that the Air Force is investing not just in airframes but in the entire supporting industrial base these platforms will need.

What the notice does not reveal is which specific requirements or performance benchmarks the Next Generation ACP will need to meet, how it might differ technically from the Increment 1 aircraft already in production, or how many additional companies the Air Force ultimately expects to bring into the program. Those details remain closely held, consistent with how the Air Force has handled Increment 2 planning more broadly, where officials have said publicly that many of the specific capabilities under consideration remain classified even as the broader shape of the program becomes clearer.

For an Air Force racing to field robotic wingmen fast enough to matter in a fight that could break out sooner than anyone would like, this quiet market research notice out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a reminder that the program building America’s next generation of combat aircraft is still actively recruiting the companies that will build it, and the list of who gets a seat at that table is far from finished.