Shield AI rendering of three X-BAT AI-piloted VTOL jets standing upright on their launch and recovery vehicles at a desert land base

X-BAT Factory: Shield AI Builds in Des Moines, Wash., Flies in Kansas

by José Duncan | Oct 2, 2026 | Aviación militar, Noticias | 0 comments

Des Moines is getting a fighter factory. Not the one in Iowa: the Des Moines on Puget Sound, about 15 minutes south of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where, GeekWire reports, the roof is going onto a 420,000-square-foot building due to open in spring 2027. It will be X-Forge 3, Shield AI’s X-BAT factory, home to an AI-piloted strike fighter designed to take off and land vertically.

Shield AI named the site on 30 September along with the other half of the plan. X-Forge 2, at Newton City-County Airport in Kansas, becomes the flight-test and sustainment base: development flying, production acceptance testing for every X-BAT, customers’ own acceptance flights and the fleet’s maintenance, repair and overhaul. X-Forge 1 in Frisco, Texas, stays the prototyping site.

The schedule is aggressive. Armor Harris, Shield AI’s senior vice president of aircraft, told GeekWire he expects the first X-BAT to roll off the Des Moines line in 2028 and output to reach about 150 aircraft a year by the early 2030s. The company’s formal plan starts production in 2029 and reaches full rate in the early 2030s. The aircraft has yet to fly.

Datos rápidos

Production site — X-Forge 3, Des Moines, Washington: 420,000 sq ft, due to open in spring 2027

Flight test and sustainment — X-Forge 2, Newton City-County Airport, Kansas

Prototyping — X-Forge 1, Frisco, Texas

Cronología — First jet off the line in 2028 (Harris); production from 2029; full rate in the early 2030s

Planned rate — About 150 aircraft a year by the early 2030s

Jobs (company model) — About 8,000 (Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue) and 1,800 (Newton area) in the early 2030s

Motor — GE Aerospace F110-GE-129E with AVEN thrust-vectoring nozzle

Des Moines builds, Newton flies

Developer Panattoni was already building it when Shield AI picked the site midway through construction, and Harris told GeekWire the company wants another million square feet in the region. Hiring has shifted to the Puget Sound, where GeekWire counted more than 110 open roles, and Shield AI told the outlet it expects 4,000 workers in the region by the early 2030s.

The bigger figures come from an IMPLAN economic model fed with Shield AI’s own inputs. It credits X-BAT with about 8,000 jobs in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region in the early 2030s and 27,000 by 2046, adding roughly $73 billion, counting suppliers and jobs sustained by local spending. The Newton area gets about 1,800 jobs in the early 2030s and 2,900 by 2046, worth some $5 billion.

“Flight test is where an airplane earns its way, and Kansas has the airspace, the hangars and the people who have spent their careers around airplanes. Puget Sound has been producing aircraft at rate for seventy years and has the engineers, technicians and suppliers that takes. X-BAT will be built in Washington and fly in Kansas before it goes to a customer, and Kansas will keep this fleet in the air for decades.”

Armor Harris — Senior Vice President of Aircraft, Shield AI (Shield AI press release, 30 September 2026)

Shield AI committed to Newton in 2025, when it first showed X-BAT to the public, and leases hangar and office space plus about 10 acres at the airport, which the city and Harvey County own three miles east of town. The Newton Kansan reports that the project includes a 30,000-square-foot hangar the city will build on the east side of the runway.

In the Second World War the Navy took over Newton’s airport as an auxiliary field for PB4Y Liberator training and stretched its main runway past 7,000 feet. Its new tenant is designed to need no runway at all: Harris told The War Zone in February that vertical launch and recovery would be the early focus of flight testing near Newton this year.

Shield AI’s official X-BAT film, premiered at the aircraft’s unveiling on 21 October 2025, before the wing was redesigned.

What Shield AI says it is building

On paper, X-BAT is a long-range, survivable strike fighter that rides a trailer called the Launch and Recovery Vehicle, lifts off vertically and lands tail-first, so it can fly from ships, islands or remote sites. Shield AI quotes an objective combat radius of 1,000 nautical miles, a maximum range above 2,000 nautical miles, a ceiling above 50,000 feet and a 39-foot wingspan.

Shield AI says its two internal bays, comparable in size to those of the F-35, take weapons up to the 2,000-pound class, and that the jet generates 80 kilowatts for electronic warfare and sensors. The engine is a GE Aerospace F110-GE-129E, from the F110 family that powers many F-16, with an AVEN thrust-vectoring nozzle first flown on an F-16 in the 1990s. In July GE and Shield AI announced that the combination had been lit off at Peebles, Ohio.

Jet engine running with its exhaust plume visible during Shield AI X-BAT engine testing — Engine testing for the X-BAT programme, as published on Shield AI’s X-BAT page. Photo: Shield AI (press image)

Hivemind, Shield AI’s autonomy software, does the flying, and the company says it needs neither GPS nor communications. The airframe has changed since the October 2025 unveiling, trading the original wing for a sharper arrowhead planform, and The War Zone reported in April that X-BAT has no landing gear and no auxiliary power unit: an external lithium-ion battery starts the engine.

Outside CCA, in Boeing’s backyard

The Air Force is buying its robot wingmen the conventional way. In June it put General Atomics’ FQ-42A and Anduril’s FQ-44A, both runway jets, into production for Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment 1: at least 150 by the end of the decade, towards a fleet of around 1,000. Shield AI’s CCA stake is software: Hivemind is one of three mission-autonomy contenders, with Anduril and Collins Aerospace, for a single pick due by summer 2027.

Harris’s 150 a year would equal, annually, the minimum the Air Force wants from CCA Increment 1 by the end of the decade. He told GeekWire that, given interest from US and international customers, “we could be looking at building these at rates greater than fighter jets have been built in a really long time.” In August it was the Navy and the Defense Innovation Unit, not the Air Force, that put $50 million into X-BAT.

Anduril YFQ-44A collaborative combat aircraft in banking flight against a blue sky — Anduril’s YFQ-44A. In February 2026 Shield AI said its Hivemind software had completed its first flight test aboard the type over the Mojave Desert. Photo: Shield AI (press image)

GeekWire called the site Boeing’s backyard, and the day before Shield AI’s announcement the Navy picked Boeing for its F/A-XX carrier fighter, to be built in St. Louis like the Air Force’s F-47. Governor Bob Ferguson called Shield AI’s decision “another sign that the future of aerospace is being built in Washington.” Harris set it against a narrative that “all the jobs are migrating elsewhere”: this, he said, is “a big win for the region.”

Abroad, Poland’s PGZ and WZL-2 signed a five-year letter of intent on 8 September to help build, deliver and sustain X-BAT, and investors valued Shield AI at $12.7 billion in March. None of it counts until a fighter-sized jet lifts off vertically in Kansas. Shield AI says that happens before the year is out.

Sources: Shield AI press release, 30 September 2026; GeekWire, 30 September 2026; KOMO News, 30 September 2026; ASDNews, 30 September 2026; Airforce Technology, 1 October 2026; KWCH, 1 October 2026; KSNW/KSNT, 1 October 2026; Newton Kansan, 2 October 2026; Shield AI and GE Aerospace, 20 July 2026; Shield AI, 9 September 2026; Shield AI, 26 March 2026; Shield AI, 26 February 2026; Shield AI, 22 October 2025; US Air Force (AFNS via GlobalSecurity), 17 June 2026; Air & Space Forces Magazine, 17 June and 20 August 2026; DefenseScoop, 17 June 2026; Defense News, 29 September 2026; KFVS12, 29 September 2026; Aerospace Global News, 30 September 2026; The War Zone, 24 February and 21 April 2026; Kansas Historical Quarterly (R. Douglas Hurt), Autumn 1977; Wikipedia: Newton, Kansas and Newton City/County Airport

Preguntas frecuentes

Where will Shield AI build the X-BAT?

Shield AI will build X-BAT at X-Forge 3 in Des Moines, Washington, about 15 minutes south of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. GeekWire reports the 420,000-square-foot building is due to open in spring 2027. Armor Harris expects the first X-BAT off the line in 2028, while Shield AI’s formal plan starts production in 2029 and reaches full rate in the early 2030s.

Where will the Shield AI X-BAT be flight tested?

At X-Forge 2, Shield AI’s site at Newton City-County Airport in Kansas, three miles east of Newton. Every X-BAT will complete production acceptance testing there before delivery, customers will fly their own acceptance flights there, and the site will also handle development flying and the fleet’s maintenance, repair and overhaul. Shield AI says flight testing begins this year.

How many jobs will the X-BAT factory create?

The headline figures count different things. Shield AI told GeekWire it expects 4,000 workers in the Puget Sound region by the early 2030s. Its IMPLAN economic model, which adds suppliers and jobs sustained by local spending, projects about 8,000 jobs in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region in the early 2030s and 27,000 by 2046, plus about 1,800 rising to 2,900 around Newton.

Is the Shield AI X-BAT part of the Air Force CCA program?

No. In June 2026 the Air Force put General Atomics’ FQ-42A and Anduril’s FQ-44A into production for CCA Increment 1. Shield AI’s role in CCA is software: Hivemind is one of three mission-autonomy contenders for a pick due by summer 2027. In August it was the Navy and the Defense Innovation Unit, not the Air Force, that put $50 million into X-BAT.

What engine powers the Shield AI X-BAT?

X-BAT uses GE Aerospace’s F110-GE-129E, from the engine family that powers many F-16, fitted with the AVEN thrust-vectoring nozzle first flown on an F-16 in the 1990s. In July 2026 GE Aerospace and Shield AI announced that the combination had been lit off at Peebles, Ohio.

Has the Shield AI X-BAT flown yet?

Not yet. Shield AI unveiled X-BAT in October 2025 and says flight testing begins this year, with Armor Harris telling The War Zone that vertical launch and recovery would be the early focus near Newton, Kansas. The design has changed since the unveiling, gaining a sharper arrowhead planform, and The War Zone reports that it has no landing gear and no auxiliary power unit.