Bengaluru defence-tech startup to develop India's first AI-powered fighter jet
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Bengaluru based defence technology and AI Warfare startup, Flying Wedge Defence & Aerospace (FWDA), has announced plans to develop India’s first AI-Piloted Fighter Jet.
The four year old company, which focuses on AI-driven warfare systems and development of next-generation combat aviation technologies, said the first flight of its FWD Supreme Lite technology demonstrator is targeted for the October-December 2026 quarter.
Unveiling the nation's first AI-Piloted Fighter Jet Concept, FWD Supreme, the company said with its efforts have seen the country joining an exclusive group United States, Turkey, and Germany that are actively pursuing AI-piloted fighter aircraft programmes aimed at redefining the future of air combat.
Unlike conventional unmanned aircraft that are remotely operated by human pilots, FWD Supreme is an AI-piloted fighter jet which will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to fly itself. The programme aims to integrate advanced situational awareness, sensor fusion, autonomous decision-making, cognitive mission execution, and advanced combat capabilities into a next-generation fighter jet architecture, the company said. FWD Supreme is being designed to perceive, analyse, decide, and act in highly contested environments with minimal human intervention. The platform is being built around the Mobbing Doctrine, a new warfare doctrine envisioned by Suhas Tejaskanda, Founder and CEO of FWDA.
“The idea is to deploy multiple AI-piloted fighter jets operating together as a coordinated swarm force against higher-value enemy manned platforms. By leveraging intelligent networking, autonomous decision-making, and cost asymmetry, it will address high cost combat scenarios where even if four to five aircraft are lost during an engagement, the remaining aircraft can continue overwhelming enemy defences, or force enemy manned fighters to retreat. The objective is to function as a force multiplier by fundamentally altering the economics and dynamics of air combat”, Tejaskanda said.
The platform is being manufactured indigenously at FWDA's manufacturing unit in Bengaluru. The FWD Supreme family is currently envisioned in two variants.
FWDA became the first Indian company to secure DGCA type certification for an indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The company subsequently unveiled India’s first unmanned bomber aircraft, the FWD-200B, which successfully completed its maiden flight on 3 September 2024.
On 22 August 2025, FWDA announced the readiness of the Kaal Bhairava E2A2 programme, India's first AI-powered Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Autonomous Combat Aircraft. Designed and developed entirely in India, the platform is engineered for up to 30 hours of endurance and a range of 3,000 km, delivering AI-driven autonomy for precision strikes, swarm operations, and real-time Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
Built with zero foreign dependency, the platform ensures complete data sovereignty and eliminates external kill-switch risks while being positioned at a fraction of the cost of comparable Predator-class UAV systems. The programme has secured a $ 25 million export order from a South Asian nation and enabled the company's first international manufacturing partnership in Portugal, marking a significant milestone in India’s global expansion strategy, the company said.
The Kaal Bhairava Lite variant has successfully conducted flight demonstrations with the Indian Army, including operations in high-altitude environments in Jammu & Kashmir. The platform has been showcased to multiple Indian defence stakeholders and is currently undergoing further evaluation and engagement processes with various security forces.