The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) Agency has awarded its first joint international contract to Edgewing, a trilateral joint venture formed by the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan. Valued at £686 million (approximately $905 million to $908 million), the contract funds key design and engineering activities to advance the development of a next-generation stealth fighter.
GCAP brings together BAE Systems from the UK, Leonardo from Italy, and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd. (JAIEC), with each holding a 33.3% share in Edgewing. Established on June 20, 2025, the venture leads engineering, airworthiness, and certification efforts for the sixth-generation combat aircraft, headquartered in Reading, UK. The contract runs until June 2026 and serves as a stopgap measure to maintain momentum while the partner nations align funding.
The program, launched in 2022, aims to deliver the fighter by 2035 to replace the UK’s and Italy’s Eurofighter Typhoons and Japan’s F-2 jets. It adopts a family-of-systems approach, integrating crewed aircraft with unmanned platforms across air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains, supported by advanced digital architecture and AI-enabled sensors.
Prior to this, the nations funded GCAP separately; this marks the first unified contract with an international prime contractor for technical design and development.