India picks V-Bat and Hivemind from Shield AI

India’s contract with Shield AI will provide new resilient reconnaissance capabilities as well as a license to develop autonomy stacks. The contract builds on a partnership that will see V-Bat built domestically in India. 

BLUF: 

• Unknown quantity of V-Bats will be provided to the Indian Army as well as licenses for the Hivemind autonomy software and development kit. 
• Production expected to take place in India in the near future, signalling further orders to follow. 

India has placed a contract for the V-Bat uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) from Shield AI. The UAVs will equip the Indian Army and “provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) from the Himalayas to India’s oceanic borders,” Sarjan Shah, Shield AI’s managing director for India, said in the January 28 press release. 

V-Bat will come with Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy stack, what is that, I suspect you might ask? 

Well, Hivemind is an artificial intelligence-driven autonomy software platform developed by Shield AI to enable uncrewed defence systems to sense, decide, and act independently in contested environments. Functioning as an autonomous pilot, the software employs perception to interpret raw sensor data for real-time environmental mapping and threat identification, whilst its cognition capabilities allow the system to reason through mission logic and make tactical decisions without human input. Shield AI states that this enables platforms to navigate dynamic surroundings and execute missions beyond visual range autonomously. 

• X-Bat: Shield AI joins the CCA field, will its pedigree hold true? – Calibre Defence 
• V-BAT drone selected by Netherlands – Calibre Defence 
• Calibre interview: Kara Dag Technologies unpacks the drone war in Ukraine 

Such claims should always be treated with some caution, but it is worth noting that the V-Bat is one drone that has been widely reported as successful in Ukraine. The jamming environment there is arguably the most intense in the world, perhaps the most intense the world has ever seen. So, if the platform does perform as some say, then Hivemind is a considerable boost. 

The contract also includes the Hivemind software development kit, which will allow India to partner with local companies to add specific autonomy modules into the stack that are designed for national needs. 

The partnership doesn’t stop there, either. As is common for sales into India, Shield AI has partnered with JSW Defence and supported by a $90 million (£71.1 million/€85.5 million) investment in a manufacturing facility in Hyderabad to enable domestic production of the V-Bat. The facility will enable both “large-scale production” for India and for export, the press release states. 

Calibre comment: 

There are a lot of ISR drones on the market. Many of them have also been tested in Ukraine, but perhaps it is V-Bat’s performance enabled by Hivemind that has caught India’s interest. During Operation Sindoor, several Indian drones, including a Warmate loitering munition from Poland, were disabled by Pakistani electronic warfare. At least, that is what the publicly available accounts indicate. It also stands to reason that Pakistan may have made extensive use of GPS denial and command link jamming. It is closely linked to the Chinese military and defence industry which also expects EW to play a major role in a conflict. So, it is possible that V-Bat’s proven performance has strong appeal to India, especially when coupled with domestic production and onward development. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on January 29, 2026. The lead image shows a V-Bat in flight, it is vertically launched and recovered, enabling it to be used in many difficult and constrained environments. Credit: Shield AI.