🔷 Saved Rounds 8.26.25

Welcome to Tuesday's Saved Rounds, where we send out all the goodies we couldn't squeeze into our Sunday newsletter.

📺 PODCAST: Check it out on YouTube or download the podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your content.

In that Number

8,000

Germany aims to build a fleet of 8,000 military drones by 2029.

The effort emphasizes flexibility and scaled production amid cautious defense spending increases driven by the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Word of the Week

UARC: A University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) is a long-term, strategic DoD research partner operated by a university to provide essential, independent, and specialized expertise in areas critical to national defense.

Why it Matters: Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory announced it has entered an agreement with the Space Force to become the newest UARC.

Zoom in

Understanding how AI works is crucial for building trust in military applications. Don’t know where to begin? We got you.

Zoom in here to get started.

They Said It

“Fundamentally, it is far technically and tactically easier to counter a force that primarily relies on massed, cheap FPV and OWA drones for its primary lethality than it is to counter well-employed airpower, long-range fires, armor, artillery, and mortars within a professional joint force.” 

— Justin Bronk, from the Royal United Services Institute, on emphasizing the limitations of drone-centric warfare compared to traditional combined arms in modern military conflicts

 ICYMI

Saved Rounds

• Greensea IQ won a $9M Marine Corps contract for its Bayonet 250 amphibious robots

• The Pentagon ordered a major AI enterprise shakeup, realigning CDAO under USD(R&E)

• Delian Alliance Industries secured $14M in Series A funding to build affordable autonomous defense systems

• The Air Force is looking into AI-powered wargaming

• Aero Turbine won a $228M Air Force contract for J85 aircraft component management

• The Army is revamping and reviving its hypervelocity cannon program

• The Air Force’s MH-139A Grey Wolf completed initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E)

• The Army released an RFI looking for cheaper Robotic Combat Vehicles ($650,000 cost cap)

• China’s first crewed tiltrotor aircraft is undergoing flight testing

• Northrop Grumman advanced to the next phase of the Army’s aviation threat detection program

• The Air Force’s HACM flight tests are scheduled to occur in fiscal 2026 after a year-long delay

• Forward Edge-AI won an Army contract to create a wireless system for predictive logistics

• Textron’s ATAC won a contract to deliver chase flight support services for the F-16

• Q-Net Security won an Air Force SBIR Phase III for secure military comms

• Sikorsky won a $43M Army contract to upgrade its UH-60 Black Hawks to launch drones

• Unanimous AI won an AFWERX TACFI contract to integrate its Hyperchat AI into Microsoft Teams

• Fold launched a fiber-optic FPV drone with 100-km range

• Google launched Gemini for Government with a 47-cent plan

• South Korea’s L-SAM is expected to arrive in 2027 with thrust-vectoring projectiles (video)

• Pasteur Labs acquired FOSAI, a developer of AI-driven physics simulation platforms

• SpaceX launched the X-37B military spaceplane to low Earth orbit for its eighth mission

• Scale AI won a $99M Army contract for research and development services

• Peraton demoed its Adaptive Control with AI control technology for robot operations

• Cubic Defense was awarded an Air Force contract for 100+ more P5 Combat Training System pods (and upgrades)

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