NEWS

Paratroopers recently tested an autonomous vehicle that featured artificial intelligence during Agile Spirit 25 in Europe.

The soldiers, from the Grafenwoehr-based 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment (Airborne), used a prototype of a fully autonomous tactical vehicle called the Ultra to see how the Army might roll as its revamped fighting doctrine continues to take shape.

The U.S. Army tested a fully AI controlled ground vehicle in Vaziani, Georgia—about 100 miles from the Russian border—last month as part of a training exercise. In military-published footage, an all wheel, off-road vehicle about the size of a car called ULTRA navigated the European terrain with ease. The training exercise had the ULTRA resupplying soldiers, but both the military and the machine’s creator think it could do much more.

Silicon Valley Defense Group, in partnership with J.P. Morgan, is proud to present the 2025 NatSec100. In its third year, this report identifies the top 100 venture-backed, dual-use and defense technology companies driving forward U.S. national security. These companies are not only advancing critical technologies, but also shaping the future contours of the U.S. defense innovation ecosystem. Our analysis yields key insights and recommendations for overcoming systemic barriers to innovation at scale.

Trust in equipment is not a luxury on the battlefield. It’s a prerequisite. As a former Ground Force Commander in the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, I’ve experienced this firsthand. Every mission demanded complete confidence in our gear, from our radios and weapons to the vehicles and sensors we employed. If we didn’t trust it, we didn’t bring it on target.

Overland AI’s fully autonomous tactical vehicles, ULTRA, were deployed across 15 live mission scenarios to comprehensively demonstrate end-to-end, Soldier-operated ground autonomy.