A Collaborative Combat Aircraft with the Shield AI Hivemind autonomy stack.

Shield AI to provide Hivemind autonomy stack for Anduril’s YFQ-44A CCA

Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy stack is gaining traction around the world. It has now been selected to support the US Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programme onboard Anduril’s YFQ-44A. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on February 16, 2026. 

Shield AI has been selected to integrate its Hivemind Autonomy Stack into the US Air Force CCA programme, according to a February 13 press release. The company will be a “mission autonomy provider,” and was selected following a competitive evaluation. 

The Hivemind system has already been integrated into Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury CCA and will be used to mission autonomy Technology Maturity and Risk Reduction (TMRR) efforts. This likely indicates attempts to figure out what autonomous CCAs can reliably be asked to do. 

Flight demonstrations with Hivemind are expected in the coming months, the press release adds. “Delivering mission autonomy in real-world combat conditions is hard, which is why Shield AI has spent more than a decade building Hivemind and the technical and operational foundation to do it right,” said Christian Gutierrez, vice president of Hivemind Solutions at Shield AI.

The press release adds that Hivemind has already been integrated into the following aircraft and efforts:

  • General Atomics, MQ-20 Avenger: A jet-powered unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designed for high-speed, long-endurance surveillance and strike missions.
  • Northrop Grumman, Talon IQ: An autonomous ecosystem designed to provide advanced processing and artificial intelligence capabilities for unmanned systems.
  • US Navy, BQM-177: A subsonic aerial target aircraft used to simulate high-speed, anti-ship cruise missiles for weapon system testing and fleet training.
  • Airbus, UH-72A Lakota: A light utility helicopter used by the United States Army for various missions, including search and rescue, medical evacuation, and border security.

The YFQ-44a is one of two aircraft in Phase 1 of the CCA programme. The other is the YFQ-42A from General Atomics. Both started flight tests from August 2025.

Calibre comment: Are CCAs the future of airpower?

CCAs are often positioned as the future of airpower. ‘Don’t worry, we can replace expensive pilots and jets with autonomous ones,’ we are told. But there are many reasons for concern around the various CCA or loyal wingman efforts underway around the world. For starters, the mission autonomy in real-world combat that Gutierrez mentions is much more than hard. At a technical level it is very difficult, but simply integrating those platforms into a combat formation is extremely difficult. Tactics and ways of working all have to be adjusted and redesigned for pilots that are already busy. 

Over and above this is the concern around capability gaps and opportunity cost. This factor is less relevant for the US, but still needs consideration. For many European air forces, they face the dual dilemma of too few pilots with insufficient funding to get a good amount of flight hours. This may be compounded by a lack of airframes, and is almost certainly occurring in line with a lack of munitions. CCAs can’t address any of these problems. Putting more airframes in the air without weapons does not create more combat power. Especially if the pilots they are meant to work with cannot train with them. In that sense, CCAs can represent an opportunity cost: The money and people invested in making them work, could be better spent making sure the existing fleet is properly armed and trained. 

If you would like to read more about the emerging CCA market and support Calibre Defence at the same time, why not read some of the articles below. It really helps us out. 

The lead image is from Shield AI and shows a graphic of a CCA.

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