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 places of work. Watching CEO Gavin Kenneally current the corporate‘s Imaginative and prescient 60 system and listening to about its a whole lot of deployments with the U.S. navy, everybody within the packed home buzzed with pleasure.
Bodily AI has lastly come of age. In keeping with most estimates, enterprise and personal fairness investments within the house have exceeded $30 billion previously 12 months, greater than double final 12 months’s exercise. So much has modified within the 12 months 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 exterior 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 combat commander,” he recalled. “I volunteered for a national project. And through this project, I realized that drones are amazing. They have amazing potential, but almost all drones in the market were flying cameras or flying sensors, a lot of them out of China back in the day and still today.”
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 identify fires and then to put out fires,” he said. “And that’s how we transitioned from flying cameras to flying robots.”
This revelation of the broader alternatives shifting from sensing information to appearing on it with UAVs gave start 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 instances and mission payloads.
“One in every of them is what we name extra tactical, and that is true for each protection and industrial use circumstances,” he continued, citing examples from his expertise. “If you wish to do a mission like placing out a fireplace, you’re not going very far. It’s simply that if you will get there inside a couple of minutes, you can also make an enormous distinction.”
“But say you want to go within a 10-mile radius, with the emphasis on heavy payloads,” mentioned Levinson. “So that’s the different use case, the place the main target is extra on dealing with heavy payloads and guaranteeing stability for his or her use. We don’t know precisely what the payloads might be, however we’ve to have the ability to help prospects. That’s once we additionally realized that quite a 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 vitality density to get you there,” defined Levinson. “So, traditionally, drones would use combustion or jet-powered systems. The problem is that these systems have significant thermal signatures that can be identified. They have a significant noise signature.”
“You have to start getting fuel around these; they make them basically irrelevant for most defense use cases and very challenging for commercial use,” he added. “Imagine, wherever you’re sitting today, 100 flying lawn mowers outside, or flying jets. We all know what it sounds like to have a plane flying over you. So planes or drones with combustion or jet engines can’t really scale in the commercial environment either, and that’s what led us to hydrogen fuel cells.”
“So our first product line is heavy-lift, battery-powered drones can carry up to 100 pounds of payload and perform a variety of missions, really continuing the initial idea we had,” Levinson mentioned. “And the second is extra targeted on long-range stealth operations that we pioneered over the previous 5 to 6 years, with a deal with hydrogen gasoline cells. And at this time we’ve refueling stations too. We’re working very intently as the one accepted 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 know-how (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 Collection B funding in Heven as a part of a know-how partnership. Within the phrases of Niccolo de Masi, chairman and CEO of IonQ, “By integrating IonQ’s world-leading quantum technologies, Heven AeroTech will deliver a new class of unparalleled UAS capabilities. This partnership positions Heven’s drones to tackle missions no other player can with unmatched precision, resilience, and security.”
Levinson unpacked the IonQ relationship additional and the forms of new improvements he’s at the moment implementing with quantum computing.
“End of last year, we did a big round, at a billion-dollar valuation, with a public company, IonQ, a leader in the quantum ecosystem. It was to support our growth, including investments in additional technologies, such as quantum technologies,” he said. “So since then, we’ve really focused on production. We are launching a very large, significant facility that’ll be both a gigafactory for drones and an innovation center.”
He added that this gigafactory might 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’ll do on a mission. There are a number of mission profiles,” mentioned Levinson. “And in our case, it’s even more challenging because if you’re working on a battlefield and you’re above the ocean, navigating and knowing where you are without GPS is very difficult.”
“This ability to communicate brought our research teams to quantum technologies, not necessarily quantum computing, but quantum sensing for navigation and quantum networking technologies for communications,” he mentioned. “These options principally allow us to navigate and talk wherever on the earth with none GPS or a signature.”
The drone pioneer continued: “So there are other ways of doing navigation, for example, doing vision-based navigation, where you look at the ground, and you can know where you are with very advanced software, but it doesn’t work above the ocean. Some companies have been using fiber-optic connections on drones, especially small drones, to communicate and navigate, but again, those systems don’t work over hundreds of miles. And that’s what brought us to navigation using quantum sensors and very advanced 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 know-how portfolio included “high-performance clocks, synchronization hardware, gravimeters, and inertial sensors, further establishing IonQ as the only quantum company integrating advanced computing, networking, and sensing capabilities within 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 are working with IonQ, which is the largest standard on quantum in the world today,” said Levinson. “And we are working together to make these systems lightweight and fit for drone applications.”
After explaining how quantum can work in GPS-denied environments, he added that it might probably 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 satellite communication, Starlink, and others. The challenge is that a lot of the stuff out there leaves signatures that can identify where a drone is flying.”
“So quantum networking technology, which involves multiple quantum sensors communicating with each other, can enable these systems to communicate without any signatures,” he elaborated. “You’ll be able to establish the place it’s coming from, and it’s principally unjammable.”
The entrepreneur summed up Heven’s relationship with IonQ: “Additionally they led our current funding spherical, which tells a bit in regards to the closeness and the significance of our partnership. However we predict these are necessary to making sure drones in future conflicts truly work. The way in which 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 situation.”
This profit is amplified by the fee financial savings of utilizing Heven’s platform, which is amplified by quantum-enabled sensors.
“We’re usually about 5% of what a traditional military drone would cost,” said Levinson. “Our drones are multi-use, so the value you get for flight hours is obviously significantly higher than those [single-use drones]. And we use these systems as mother ships, for example, to launch a variety of capabilities, from heavy-lift, long-endurance, quantum-enabled drones. So again, we’re a fraction of the price of traditional alternatives.”
Matthew Walsh of Waymo and Lydon Sleeper of Joby Aviation talk about the challenges of launching city autonomous methods. Credit score: Mara Zalite
Competitors will come for hydrogen-powered protection drones
From a aggressive standpoint, Heven is at the moment working in open skies. Whereas firms like Doosan have hydrogen UAVs, and Elroy and Sabrewing manufacture hybrids, Levinson mentioned nobody else at this time is providing the mix of long-haul missions with heavy payloads, with out signatures in GPS-denied environments.
Nonetheless, on the horizon, you will need to acknowledge that Protect AI, AeroVironment, Kaman, and upstarts will finally 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 kind of been the pioneers and have a really good advantage. Again, it’s five to six years of solving many different parts of the components,” said Levinson. “We expect more of the market to get in this wave. We have a very significant position on the IP and patent sides, as well as in practical partnerships and technology. So I think we have good positioning today. So we’re really working hard to get to scale and get to the field at scale, and are really solid about our position as the market leader in the space.”
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, individuals, attendees, and, after all, our companions: GENIUS NY, ff Enterprise Capital, Arkenstone Capital, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Evercore, NUAIR, Samson Rose, HAUS, Punch Monetary, 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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