US defense company Anduril flies its uncrewed jet drone for first time (www.reuters.com)

US defense contractor Anduril conducted the first flight of its uncrewed jet-powered drone, completing a semi-autonomous sortie that company and media reports framed as a milestone for its push into higher-speed, AI-enabled air platforms. The test — described as semi-autonomous — signals that the aircraft handled at least portions of navigation and flight control without a human remotely piloting every maneuver, demonstrating integration of autonomy software with a jet airframe rather than a slower propeller-based UAV. For the AI/ML community the event matters because jet drones raise new demands on perception, control and decision-making systems: higher speeds compress reaction windows, increase sensor fusion complexity, and require low-latency, reliable autonomy stacks and safety-verification before deployment. The flight highlights priorities such as adversarial-robust perception, real-time trajectory planning, distributed multi-agent coordination for swarms or intercept roles, and certification challenges for safety-critical ML. It also underscores the growing Pentagon–Silicon Valley nexus: venture-backed companies are fast-tracking operational AI into military platforms, pushing research emphasis toward resilient, explainable, and verifiable autonomy that can operate under contested communications and regulatory scrutiny.