Aviv Shapira on building 1 million AI driven drones for the U.S. govt.
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Transcript
28 segmentsHey, welcome back, everybody. Thanks so much for Dr. Ahmed for coming in. And we have a lot going on today. We are tracking the latest developments and what's going on with this U.S., Russia, Ukraine, EU, all the talks going on to try to land that plane and get that war over with. I know it's in Russia's court. We'll talk about that. We're also talking about everything to do with the economy leading up to Thanksgiving. We'll keep you up to date on that. But if you want to know what's weighing down a lot of people in our country, it's worry about AI. People are intrigued by it. They don't want to left behind by it, but they worry about losing jobs for it. The one thing is pretty clear, though, when it comes to medical advancements, when it comes to our Pentagon, our military, it's really intriguing about the things we can accomplish also in a race against China. They're number two or number one. We've got to make sure we beat them there. Aviv. Shapira joins us now, co-founder and the CEO of Extend, a world leader in battle-proven AI robotics, who just recently secured a multi-billion-dollar contract with the Pentagon. Welcome back. Welcome, Aviv. Good to see you. Same here. Nice to be here. Thank you very much. So, first off, tell us about what you plan on bringing to the Pentagon. So as part of Pete's access, you know, contribution to the world of Department of War, bringing one million drones, right? That's the goal. We're part of that effort. So we're actually bringing AI-enabled drones, meaning that they can actually fly without human intervention all the way in the field, making their own decisions, specifically in the world of one-way attack drones, meaning that they can actually replace humans in some of the most dangerous missions on this planet. We're one of these companies bringing that to our end users and keeping those soldiers safe. So what have you learned watching what's happening in Ukraine? We are actually fighting in Ukraine as well. You know, for unfortunate reasons, we've been fighting in Israel, in Ukraine, in Iran, twice in Afghanistan, you know, a few years ago. So we actually have a good understanding of how to actually use drones in battle as opposed to some of the companies who are just training. Again, for unfortunate reasons, and that actually gave us a lot of perspective. Specifically, Ukraine is a very difficult war. A lot of jamming, a lot of cyber attacks. So drones are really hard to fly there. So you have to get around using AI to actually solve some of these challenges. Yeah, I understand both sides are trying to block the other sides on a regular basis. But it's amazing how much advancements we had since this war started, thanks to the Russia invasion. Because this was trench warfare. This was being fought by tanks. How did it change? Yeah, I mean, think about a $500 drone destroying a $10 million tank. This is the reality of new warfare. And even more than that, we actually see software changing warfare. So, you know, think about these drones. You know, they can fly fast. They can fly low. They can carry a lot of munitions. But using AI, they can suddenly be smarter and smarter every day that goes by.
And that's the big news. You know, how do you actually take a piece of metal, which is essentially a flying computer? And using AI, it can suddenly do much more than just, you know, just watch over us. So how do you, so the contract you signed with us, what is, what's the on the contract? You have to get to a million. What's your goal? So the contract is pretty unique in a way that it's AI-driven swarm drones. What does that mean in practical words? So as you know, complex missions require more than one drone or robot to actually complete it. So you have sometimes indoor drones, outdoor drones, sometimes even ground robotics operating together. The idea is to actually orchestrate all of them using one operator in a single mission. So this basically means that we actually have to operate in very contested environments, as you mentioned before, you know, fighting that, you know, that jamming coming from like Russian jammers, but having different types of tools. So you have an indoor drone, for example, and an outdoor drones operating together as one system. Pretty impressive. So where's China at compared to us and you? I think the, yeah, I think, you know, we all read on the news, they're like, a thousand times, even 10,000 times more equipped than us. So they manufacture much quicker. So the whole industrial base in the U.S. has to ramp up to actually keep up. But when it comes to AI, I think we're giving a pretty good fight. You know, AI is based on software. And when it comes to software, the U.S. market, the Western world is, I think, more advanced than China. And this is our chance to win using the brains and not the quantities. Where do you do your manufacturing? So we have a facility based in Tampa. We're close to our customers. We work very closely with the Socom community. And this is where we manufacture today, most of the drones today. Last year, about 5,000 drones have been delivered. How many of your parts are depending on China parts? So when it comes to the U.S. government, there is something called the NDAA, so National Defense Authorization Act. So we can't really buy smart components from China. Things like, you know, like computation models, sensors. When it comes to plastics and like carbon and screws and things like that, then you can buy, you know, you can buy it from China and it doesn't even matter. It's okay for now, for now. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FN Radio 20. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order to order. Please drink responsibly. Yeah, for now, but their goal is to bring it all here. When people get worried about, and first they use it, everyone always quotes Eisenhower, be worried about the military industrial base. That's not the problem anymore. Because it is a problem that we don't have a big military industrial base. Have you seen any substantial improvements over the last year? When the war started specifically in Israel, another country that we operate in, we had to actually make our own self-reliant facility to manufacture drones. We couldn't rely on China. We couldn't rely on anyone else. The same thing applies for the U.S. And we're saying this in Ukraine, by the way. They actually manufacture 4 million drones a year.
only completely on their own. And the U.S. were a bit behind when it comes to the industrial base. But I think the government is going to be up to speed. Everyone is worried about it. And a lot of money is being pouring through the big, beautiful bill to actually create that infrastructure bill, infrastructure act in the U.S. to actually deal with that problem. So I said, I was talking to Senator Tom Cotton. He's chairman of Armed Services. And he was saying that he was one of his big Focus is, can we stop a drone attack right now? We notice that most of our bases are being buzzed and being observed by drones. We don't know where these drones are from. And if they started, people started sending drones into our buildings right now, if they started doing that, where's our defense? And the answer is we don't have it. So what role do you see yourself or you as an expert playing in that? I would like to comment. So two years ago, if you asked me that question, I will tell you it's a cyber war, right? Drones are changing frequencies and you try to kill them with different jamming devices. In the last year, even two years, drones are flying without communication at all, even without GPS. So essentially, imagine them as a piece of metal flying in the sky, and you have to physically kill them. So you need countermeasures such as lasers, such as drone versus drones, such as even vulcans. That's the future of counter-US. Would you call it Vulcans? You said Vulcans? Yeah, like a Vulcan gang, like shooting them with bullets. This is what they do in Ukraine. And, you know, physical interception, right? So physically killing these drones, you know, taking them down from the skies. As in, you know, you call me an expert, but in extent, what we do basically is we build a drone that fights other drones. So physically, we actually shoot them down with a net. This is what we do in extent. Can you describe that for me? What do you mean? Yeah. So imagine a drone is coming at you. Let's say to the Pentagon, God forbid. And you detect that drone using a radar on the ground. And you send the drone that flies faster to that drone and basically shoots a net. like, you know, to capture it, like a fishing net, like a large fishing net. And that drone is then intercepted. This is part of the things that we're doing on the borders of Israel, for example, and Ukraine as well. And I imagine that would work on our southern border. It would work on any border. Yeah. Yeah, it would work on any border. The problem is the Mexican border, for example, is huge. You would have, you know, drones fly maybe for like five miles. You would need like thousands of systems to be deployed. Yeah. That's a problem. I'm not going to lie to you. Aviv, so getting this contract is great for your company. Why do you think you can satisfy it? So first of all, we've built a pretty big and substantial facility in Tampa to actually physically manufacture these drones. Everything is made in the US with U.S. components. So that's number one. But the magic is actually the software.
The brain behind these systems came from six years of know-how fighting different conflicts in more than five different countries. And that software is what's going to make the difference for the U.S. government as well. And this is what's going to keep our soldiers safe. I'm going to ask a real fundamental question that shows I've never designed a drone. Who's deciding what that – who's putting the AI intelligence into the drone to decide what its mission is? So you said the band don't control it, like we don't use the, we don't use the joysticks anymore. Okay, I understand that. You're saying that you program it, I get it. So who's deciding what that drone does? So we call that AI pilots. Everything that a human does, we learn as best as we can. We copy it. And then we hand this over to an AI pilot to complete that mission. Today, I think we're roughly the 70% mark. So 70% of the missions done by soldiers and police officers can be done by AI. That 30% is the hardest. When we get to 10%, it's going to be even harder. But that's the future of warfare in general. Wow. Aviv Josh Shapiro, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Co-founder and CEO of Extend, a world leader in battle-proven AI robotics. Go get them, Aviv. Thank you. Thank you, Brian.