Heven AeroTech has developed the Z1 hydrogen drone for the protection business. Supply: IonQ
Ghost Robotics’ crouching mechanical canine kicked off The Drones & Robotics AI Summit final month at Pillsbury’s New York workplaces. Watching CEO Gavin Kenneally current the corporate‘s Imaginative and prescient 60 system and listening to about its a whole bunch of deployments with the U.S. army, everybody within the packed home buzzed with pleasure.
Bodily AI has lastly come of age. In accordance with most estimates, enterprise and personal fairness investments within the house have exceeded $30 billion prior to now 12 months, greater than double final yr’s exercise. Quite a bit has modified within the yr since internet hosting the final summit: humanoid buzz, OpenClaw, and now autonomous weapons are reshaping warfare throughout the Center East and Europe.
The alternatives will solely be amplified with advances in generative AI and the promise of quantum computing.
Gavin Kenneally, CEO of Ghost Robotics, demonstrated the Imaginative and prescient 60 robotic canine at The Drones & Robotics AI Summit final month in New York. Credit score: Mara Zalite
Heven AeroTech founder recounts journey to ‘unicorn’ standing
After the occasion, I met with Bentzion Levinson, founder and CEO of Heven AeroTech, in Jerusalem, between sirens warning of Iranian ballistic missiles. Throughout our hour-long (alert-free) assembly, he shared with me the early days of his uncrewed aerial car (UAV) firm’s journey to turn out to be Israel’s newest unicorn startup.
One of many largest takeaways from our assembly was his adoption of quantum computing to advance sensing information as a part of a wider partnership with IonQ, Heven’s largest outdoors shareholder. Levinson defined the evolution of his firm and its dedication to fixing actual issues for warfighters all over the place.
“And after my [military] service, I left as a fight commander,” he recalled. “I volunteered for a nationwide mission. And thru this mission, I spotted that drones are wonderful. They’ve wonderful potential, however nearly all drones out there have been flying cameras or flying sensors, a whole lot of them out of China again within the day and nonetheless as we speak.”
It was 2018, and the Israeli border with Gaza was being terrorized by kite and balloon fires. Levinson rose to the duty of utilizing drones to autonomously establish and quickly extinguish the threats.
“We used drones at first to establish fires after which to place out fires,” he mentioned. “And that’s how we transitioned from flying cameras to flying robots.”
This revelation of the broader alternatives transferring from sensing information to appearing on it with UAVs gave delivery to his billion-dollar thought.
Nathaniel Bazydlo of NUAIR, Jeff Causey of Causey Aviation, Greg James of DroneUp, and Jodi Goldberg of Pillsbury mentioned the regulatory atmosphere for UAVs in New York. Credit score: Mara Zalite
Drone startup recognized two use circumstances
From this early expertise, Levinson recognized two distinct use circumstances: response occasions and mission payloads.
“Certainly one of them is what we name extra tactical, and that is true for each protection and business use circumstances,” he continued, citing examples from his expertise. “If you wish to do a mission like placing out a hearth, you’re not going very far. It’s simply that if you will get there inside a couple of minutes, you may make a giant distinction.”
“However say you wish to go inside a 10-mile radius, with the emphasis on heavy payloads,” mentioned Levinson. “So that’s the different use case, the place the main focus is extra on dealing with heavy payloads and making certain stability for his or her use. We don’t know precisely what the payloads will likely be, however now we have to have the ability to assist prospects. That’s after we additionally realized that a whole lot of the use circumstances are going to be extra long-range.”
From batteries to hydrogen-powered UAVs
Whereas working with the Israel Protection Forces (IDF), the previous soldier skilled these challenges firsthand and got down to fill the market hole together with his present hydrogen-powered UAV.
“If you wish to do short-range missions, then batteries are nice. However if you wish to do long-range missions, batteries don’t have the power density to get you there,” defined Levinson. “So, historically, drones would use combustion or jet-powered techniques. The issue is that these techniques have vital thermal signatures that may be recognized. They’ve a major noise signature.”
“You must begin getting gas round these; they make them mainly irrelevant for many protection use circumstances and really difficult for business use,” he added. “Think about, wherever you’re sitting as we speak, 100 flying garden mowers outdoors, or flying jets. Everyone knows what it sounds prefer to have a airplane flying over you. So planes or drones with combustion or jet engines can’t actually scale within the business atmosphere both, and that’s what led us to hydrogen gas cells.”
“So our first product line is heavy-lift, battery-powered drones can carry as much as 100 kilos of payload and carry out a wide range of missions, actually persevering with the preliminary thought we had,” Levinson mentioned. “And the second is extra centered on long-range stealth operations that we pioneered over the previous 5 to 6 years, with a deal with hydrogen gas cells. And as we speak now we have refueling stations too. We’re working very carefully as the one accredited hydrogen drone for lengthy endurance, self-driven, for the U.S. authorities and Israel.”
Justin Rubin of Pillsbury (proper) hosted Douglas Bush, former assistant secretary of the Military for acquisition, logistics, and expertise (left), to advise startups on DoW buying necessities. Credit score: Mara Zalite
IonQ helps Heven transfer to quantum computing
In November 2025, IonQ led a $100 million Sequence B funding in Heven as a part of a expertise partnership. Within the phrases of Niccolo de Masi, chairman and CEO of IonQ, “By integrating IonQ’s world-leading quantum applied sciences, Heven AeroTech will ship a brand new class of unparalleled UAS capabilities. This partnership positions Heven’s drones to sort out missions no different participant can with unmatched precision, resilience, and safety.”
Levinson unpacked the IonQ relationship additional and the forms of new improvements he’s presently implementing with quantum computing.
“Finish of final yr, we did a giant spherical, at a billion-dollar valuation, with a public firm, IonQ, a pacesetter within the quantum ecosystem. It was to assist our progress, together with investments in further applied sciences, equivalent to quantum applied sciences,” he mentioned. “So since then, we’ve actually centered on manufacturing. We’re launching a really giant, vital facility that’ll be each a gigafactory for drones and an innovation heart.”
He added that this gigafactory will likely be in Virginia as a result of its buyer base is primarily within the Washington, D.C., space. Heven’s founder excitedly illustrated how quantum is like GenAI on steroids for autonomy.
“So the drone platforms are solely nearly as good as what they will do on a mission. There are a number of mission profiles,” mentioned Levinson. “And in our case, it’s much more difficult as a result of for those who’re engaged on a battlefield and also you’re above the ocean, navigating and understanding the place you’re with out GPS could be very tough.”
“This skill to speak introduced our analysis groups to quantum applied sciences, not essentially quantum computing, however quantum sensing for navigation and quantum networking applied sciences for communications,” he mentioned. “These options mainly allow us to navigate and talk wherever on the earth with none GPS or a signature.”
The drone pioneer continued: “So there are different methods of doing navigation, for instance, doing vision-based navigation, the place you have a look at the bottom, and you may know the place you’re with very superior software program, but it surely doesn’t work above the ocean. Some corporations have been utilizing fiber-optic connections on drones, particularly small drones, to speak and navigate, however once more, these techniques don’t work over a whole bunch of miles. And that’s what introduced us to navigation utilizing quantum sensors and really superior quantum clocks. ”
A packed home listens to the protection tech panel of David Skinner of Griffiss Institute, Bentzion Levinson of Heven Aero, David Franco of Wild West Techniques, and Ryan Eppley of Root Entry. Credit score: Mara Zalite
Networking and sensors solidify IonQ place
In September 2025, shortly earlier than its funding in Heven, IonQ acquired Vector Atomic, which claimed to be a pacesetter in superior quantum sensors for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) purposes. Vector mentioned it had greater than $200 million in authorities contracts associated to nationwide safety.
The corporate additionally said that its expertise portfolio included “high-performance clocks, synchronization {hardware}, gravimeters, and inertial sensors, additional establishing IonQ as the one quantum firm integrating superior computing, networking, and sensing capabilities inside a single platform.”
IonQ asserted that its acquisition of Vector solidified its market place, enabling it to compete within the rising quantum sensing and navigation area, which incorporates such main tech suppliers as SandboxAQ, Q-CTRL, Infleqtion, Lockheed, and RTX.
“We’re working with IonQ, which is the most important commonplace on quantum on the earth as we speak,” mentioned Levinson. “And we’re working collectively to make these techniques light-weight and match for drone purposes.”
After explaining how quantum can work in GPS-denied environments, he added that it could possibly function a stealthy long-range communication platform.
“The opposite piece is communication, so short-range communication, there are completely different ranges, additionally challenged by jamming,” Levinson mentioned. “We have now satellite tv for pc communication, Starlink, and others. The problem is that a whole lot of the stuff on the market leaves signatures that may establish the place a drone is flying.”
“So quantum networking expertise, which includes a number of quantum sensors speaking with one another, can allow these techniques to speak with none signatures,” he elaborated. “You possibly can establish the place it’s coming from, and it’s mainly unjammable.”
The entrepreneur summed up Heven’s relationship with IonQ: “In addition they led our current funding spherical, which tells a bit concerning the closeness and the significance of our partnership. However we expect these are necessary to making sure drones in future conflicts really work. The best way I give it some thought is that if our drones can navigate the place they’re and talk so our adversaries don’t detect them, that’s a game-changing state of affairs.”
This profit is amplified by the fee financial savings of utilizing Heven’s platform, which is amplified by quantum-enabled sensors.
“We’re normally about 5% of what a standard army drone would value,” mentioned Levinson. “Our drones are multi-use, so the worth you get for flight hours is clearly considerably larger than these [single-use drones]. And we use these techniques as mom ships, for instance, to launch a wide range of capabilities, from heavy-lift, long-endurance, quantum-enabled drones. So once more, we’re a fraction of the worth of conventional alternate options.”
Matthew Walsh of Waymo and Lydon Sleeper of Joby Aviation talk about the challenges of launching city autonomous techniques. Credit score: Mara Zalite
Competitors will come for hydrogen-powered protection drones
From a aggressive standpoint, Heven is presently working in open skies. Whereas corporations like Doosan have hydrogen UAVs, and Elroy and Sabrewing manufacture hybrids, Levinson mentioned nobody else as we speak is providing the mixture of long-haul missions with heavy payloads, with out signatures in GPS-denied environments.
Nevertheless, on the horizon, you will need to acknowledge that Protect AI, AeroVironment, Kaman, and upstarts will ultimately launch on this rising defense-tech business and contest Heven for market share. Lengthy-term, their quantum edge with IonQ may turn out to be their deepest moat to guard the citadel.
“We’ve form of been the pioneers and have a extremely good benefit. Once more, it’s 5 to 6 years of fixing many alternative components of the parts,” mentioned Levinson. “We count on extra of the market to get on this wave. We have now a really vital place on the IP and patent sides, in addition to in sensible partnerships and expertise. So I believe now we have good positioning as we speak. So we’re actually working exhausting to get to scale and get to the sector at scale, and are actually stable about our place because the market chief within the house.”
Bodily AI panel with Erik Nieves of Plus One Robotics, Rosalind Shinkle of Tuesday’s Lab, Nadav Orbach of RealSense, Duncan McIntyre of FieldAI, and Adam Hopkins of Sensetics. Credit score: Mara Zalite
Final month, Kara Jones, and Rebecca Breeden, and I organized our annual Drones & Robotics AI Summit 2026. A particular thanks to all of the presenters, contributors, attendees, and, in fact, our companions: GENIUS NY, ff Venture Capital, Arkenstone Capital, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Evercore, NUAIR, Samson Rose, HAUS, Punch Financial, Qapita, and AUVSI Empire State Chapter.
Audio system included Jeff Burnstein, Matthew Walsh, Erik Nieves, Rosalind Shinkle, Nadav Orbach, Duncan McIntyre, Adam Hopkins, Ben Verschueren, Joe Jones, Bentzion Levinson, Ryan Eppley, Jacob Andreesen, and the GNY cohorts. For more information, take heed to the Machine Minds Podcast.
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