Saab has flight-tested its own artificial intelligence agents on the Gripen E, including an agent that autonomously controlled the fighter in beyond-visual-range combat scenarios. The Swedish aerospace company has not disclosed when the trials took place, how many flights were involved or how the agent performed. The tests establish that Saab’s in-house air-combat AI has moved from simulation to flight, but not that it is ready for operational service.
Saab’s AI Fighter Pilot Academy is developing the agents, along with the infrastructure to train and evaluate them across scenarios and platforms. Gripen E’s software-defined architecture allows new software to be integrated and tested on the fighter without a dedicated experimental aircraft. Saab’s disclosure follows earlier Gripen E trials with Helsing’s Centaur agent; the latest work uses agents, training environments and development tools created in-house.
The agents are intended for crewed and uncrewed platforms. Saab is also a founding partner in Sferical AI, a Swedish sovereign-computing initiative based in Linköping that provides capacity for AI development. The facility uses Nvidia’s DGX SuperPOD architecture and 1,152 GB300 GPUs. Saab has described its ambition to adapt agents for other platforms, including GlobalEye, but has not provided a deployment timetable or detailed flight-test performance data.