DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

In one line

Historic VENOM milestone demonstrates scalable AI development capabilities for the operational fleet.

Opening excerpt

Official websites use .mil A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of War organization.

Secure .mil websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock Locked padlock icon ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Source: U.S. Air Force | Samuel King Jr., 96th Test Wing July 16, 2026 Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. — A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jet, recently modified to serve as an autonomous flying testbed, is undergoing in-air testing using an artificial intelligence (AI) agent to autonomously control flight. This milestone advances state of the art technological infrastructure designed to enable rapid, scalable combat AI development across the joint force.

The aircraft is one of a group of F-16s that have been converted into autonomous-capable platforms under the Viper Experimentation and Next-generation Operations Model (VENOM) program — a joint effort between the U.S. Air Force and DARPA, initiated under the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program .

(Excerpted from the original; full article via the source link below.)

This story hit the Hacker News front page today (134 points / 142 comments, via darpa.mil). Our Tech Radar aggregates daily signals on AI engineering, backend architecture and DevOps — browse the related services and further reading below, or get in touch with our team.