American defense contractor L3Harris Technologies announced this week that it will partner with Shield AI to develop an electronic warfare operation powered by artificial intelligence.

According to a Wednesday statement from L3Harris, the upcoming operation is a collaboration between the company’s Distributed Spectrum Collaboration and Operations (DiSCO) and Shield AI’s Hivemind piloting technology. 

The collaboration will bring DiSCO’s state-of-the-art electronic warfare capabilities to the AI-powered flight systems in Hivemind. L3Harris says that the collaboration will prove essential for warfighters facing complicated and ever-changing battlefields. 

“Our warfighters face a complex, multi-domain battlefield full of rapidly evolving threats,” President of Space and Airborne Systems at L3Harris Ed Zoiss said. “DiSCO will leverage Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy software to accelerate the ability to make faster, more informed decisions.”

The companies say the collaboration could add a necessary, AI-powered link in the integrated chain of weapons systems used by the U.S. military. 

“Adversaries’ kill webs are complex, restrict access and put assets at risk. Countering them requires shifting to distributed, autonomous kill webs that sense, decide and act in real-time,” Vice President of Hivemind Solutions at Shield AI Christian Gutierrez said. “Integrating Hivemind autonomy with L3Harris’ EW capabilities enables dynamic maneuverability in contested environments.”

• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.