U.S. Shield AI Moves X-BAT Unmanned Fighter Toward Production in Poland for NATO.

U.S. defense company Shield AI is moving its X-BAT autonomous vertical-takeoff fighter toward European production through a proposed partnership with Poland’s PGZ and WZL-2. The move could give NATO a runway-independent combat aircraft able to disperse away from air bases increasingly vulnerable to long-range missile and drone strikes.

The proposed Polish production and sustainment hub would give NATO a regional base to operate and support the U.S.-developed autonomous fighter. X-BAT could strengthen distributed air operations, improve survivability, and expand combat airpower from austere or dispersed locations.

Related Topic: MSPO 2026 Official Online Show Daily News

Shield AI’s X-BAT autonomous combat drone scale model displayed at MSPO 2026 in Kielce, Poland, highlighting a runway-independent design intended for dispersed operations from austere sites, roads and ships.(Picture source: Army Recognition Group)

U.S. Company Shield AI, PGZ, and WZL-2 from Poland signed a five-year letter of intent on September 8 during MSPO 2026 in Kielce, Poland, opening negotiations over design, production, maintenance, and technology transfer. For the United States, the significance extends beyond a Polish procurement opportunity because X-BAT combines mission autonomy, fighter-class propulsion, and distributed basing concepts increasingly relevant to U.S. operations in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

The central operational proposition behind X-BAT is the removal of the runway from the fighter force’s critical dependencies. Shield AI designed the uncrewed combat aircraft for vertical takeoff and landing from small sites, roads, austere positions, and ships, allowing commanders to distribute combat aviation rather than concentrate aircraft at a limited number of established airfields. That requirement has direct relevance to U.S. force planning because American and allied air bases would be priority targets during the opening phase of a high-intensity conflict, where ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and long-range precision weapons could damage runways, fuel infrastructure and maintenance facilities before conventional fighter forces generate sustained sorties.

X-BAT is intended to change that equation by moving fighter-class combat power away from fixed infrastructure. Shield AI says the aircraft has a combat radius of about 1,852 km (1,000 nautical miles) and internal weapon bays that can carry weapons in the 907 kg (2,000 lb) class. Combined with a low-observable design, these characteristics could allow an autonomous aircraft operating from dispersed sites to conduct air-to-air, air-to-surface, electronic warfare, and intelligence missions while reducing dependence on large, easily identified air installations.

Its propulsion architecture is particularly relevant to the U.S. aerospace industrial base. X-BAT uses GE Aerospace’s F110 fighter engine coupled with an Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust Nozzle, or AVEN, that provides the thrust-vectoring capability required for vertical operations. GE Aerospace and Shield AI completed engine light-off testing of the integrated F110 and AVEN configuration in Ohio in July 2026, clearing another technical step toward vertical flight. The F110 family has accumulated more than 11 million flight hours and already supports major fighter fleets, potentially reducing propulsion risk compared with developing an entirely new engine for an autonomous combat aircraft.

Poland could now become part of that industrial structure. Under the letter of intent, PGZ and Shield AI will examine Polish participation in X-BAT design, production, and deliveries for domestic and export customers, while negotiations also cover supply-chain integration, training, technology development, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul. WZL-2 gives the proposal particular weight because the company already supports Polish F-16 and C-130 aircraft and is preparing maintenance capabilities for the F110 engine family, which could connect autonomous combat aviation to an existing NATO fighter sustainment ecosystem.

No production contract has yet been signed, and the letter of intent should not be interpreted as a Polish order for X-BAT. The three companies must still determine workshare, facilities, technology-transfer arrangements, and final industrial responsibilities before concluding binding agreements. Poland has nevertheless already moved toward a broader relationship with Shield AI, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying in June 2026 that Warsaw intended to pursue cooperation on an autonomous combat aircraft program, followed by the selection of Shield AI’s V-BAT vertical-takeoff unmanned aerial vehicle for Polish Navy maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

The connection between X-BAT and Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy software makes the Polish initiative especially relevant to U.S. combat-air modernization. Hivemind is designed to let aircraft execute complex missions with less dependence on continuous human control or communications, a capability that is increasingly important for operations in contested electromagnetic environments. X-BAT itself is not part of the U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft acquisition program, but the technology illustrates how a common autonomy architecture could be adapted across different combat aircraft while allowing mission software to advance separately from individual airframe programs.

X-BAT’s electrical architecture provides up to 80 kW of power for radar, electronic warfare, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance equipment through an open mission architecture. That capacity matters because an autonomous fighter must do more than fly without a pilot. It must detect threats, manage sensors, process information and cooperate with other aircraft while operating where communications and satellite navigation may be degraded or denied.

For U.S. forces, the Polish initiative may ultimately matter most as a test of whether autonomous fighter-class aircraft can be produced, sustained and dispersed through allied infrastructure at scale. A future force distributed across Poland, the Baltic region or other NATO territory could complicate Russian targeting by replacing a small number of predictable fighter bases with a much larger network of potential operating locations. The same logic applies to the Indo-Pacific, where long distances and a limited number of major airfields create similar vulnerabilities for U.S. tactical aviation.

An autonomous combat aircraft capable of operating from austere land sites or suitable ships would not eliminate requirements for logistics, fuel, weapons and maintenance, but it could make the launch-and-recovery portion of the airpower system substantially harder for an adversary to suppress. Shield AI plans to begin X-BAT flight testing in 2026, making the next phase critical for determining whether its vertical-takeoff concept can deliver fighter-relevant range, payload and sortie generation outside controlled demonstrations. If those capabilities are validated, Poland’s proposed production role could give NATO an early model for distributing autonomous combat aviation across allied territory while giving the United States another path to reducing one of modern airpower’s most persistent vulnerabilities: the runway.

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Written by Alain Servaes – Chief Editor, Army Recognition Group
Alain Servaes is a former infantry non-commissioned officer and the founder of Army Recognition. With over 20 years in defense journalism, he provides expert analysis on military equipment, NATO operations, and the global defense industry.