The noise we've made, and the headlines we've hijacked.
The Partner Program: Hot Potato No More
The Raft Partner Program. Let's talk about it. We stopped treating integration like a live grenade and started building an ecosystem where companies plug into the same foundation once. No more bespoke wiring jobs that require a PhD and a prayer. No more “custom solution” that quietly reincarnates as next year’s integration problem. Just partners aligned on one goal: getting real capability to operators at the edge without the ceremonial parade of delays, rework, and those polite emails that begin with, “per my last…” The result? Things connect faster. Ship faster. And actually show up where missions happen.
We were awarded a contract for Desert Sentry after acknowledging a simple truth. Operators did not sign up to become full-time pixel accountants. There are only so many hours a person can stare at imagery before every rock looks guilty and every shadow feels like it owes you money. Desert Sentry, via Raft AI Mission System, brings operator-centric AI into the workflow to handle the visual trench work. It quietly flags what matters so operators can focus on context, judgment, and the decisions that move missions forward instead of conducting a lifelong staring contest with satellite photos. It adapts in real time, at the edge, under real conditions, because CENTCOM missions do not pause for loading wheels, retraining cycles, or that awkward moment where everyone wonders if the system is thinking or just emotionally unavailable.
See what happens when computer vision stops being polite and starts getting real. These demos walk through the Raft AI Mission System in full operator mode:
Pull proven models from the Model Zoo like it’s a tactical thrift store
Train new ones just by describing them, no labeling bootcamp required
Auto-slice raw imagery and generate training data without the box-drawing purgatory
Deploy, update, and validate in one workflow that moves faster than your boss’s panic Slack
AI does the first mile. Operators do the last pass. And when the mission shifts, the model does too,in days, not defense fiscal quarters.
Lightning Surge 1: The Fighting Prototype Powered by Raft Data Platform and Raft AI Mission System
At Lightning Surge 1, the 25th Infantry Division and U.S. Army Hawai‘i put a real NGC2 prototype to work, moving from sensor to decision at operational speed.
With partners Lockheed Martin, Accelint, and Rune Technologies, we delivered the data layer and AI mission capability through the Raft Data Platform and the Raft AI Mission System.
If Canada and China were in a high school rom-com, this subplot would be “unexpected office romance.” Canada waives EV tariffs to get Beijing to buy more canola, and suddenly, President Trump is threatening 100% tariffs and suggesting Canada just became America’s 51st state.
Whether this is a fling or a long-term commitment, one thing’s clear: the alliance just entered the “it’s complicated” phase.
So the Pentagon just dropped a strategy update that basically says future wars might hit U.S. soil. Not in a popcorn, big screen, aliens-over-the-White-House way. In a very calm, very serious, “we should probably plan for this” way. Missiles, drones, and cyber threats have leveled up to the point where America is no longer just watching the fight from the couch. Their answer is a beefed-up defense playbook that looks less like “keep enemies over there” and more like “prepare to deal with trouble right here.” Think Home Alone, but with interceptors instead of paint cans. In short, future wars might show up uninvited at our doorstep, and the Pentagon wants to make sure we’re not handing them cookies.
The new space race is not about flags, selfies, or billionaire joyrides. It is about who can operate, defend, and, if necessary, fight from orbit first. Axios makes it clear that the new space race is less Apollo 11 and more don’t-touch-my-satellites. Nations are beefing up their space capabilities and inching satellites closer together like cars in a parking lot with no painted lines. Orbit now quietly runs communications, navigation, intelligence, and a good chunk of national security. So the U.S. is reinforcing Space Command and layering in defenses because if things get weird up there, things get very weird down here.
