The Pentagon will look to develop new artificial intelligence-guided planes, offering two contracts that several private companies have been competing to obtain. The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) project is part of a $6 billion program that will add at least 1,000 new drones to the U.S. Air Force.
These drones would deploy alongside human-piloted jets and provide cover for them, acting as escorts with full weapons capabilities that could also act as scouts or communications hubs, The Wall Street Journal reported. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics and Anduril Industries have all taken up the challenge. General Atomics supplied the Reaper and Predator drones the U.S. has deployed in numerous campaigns in the Middle East, and Anduril is a newcomer to the field, founded in 2017 by inventor Palmer Luckey, an entrepreneur who founded Oculus VR. Fox News Digital reached out to some of the companies pursuing the CCA contracts, but they either did not respond or declined to commen