KAI and Kratos Partner to Develop AI-Driven Manned-Unmanned Airpower for South Korea
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Korea Aerospace Industries signed an MoU with Kratos Defense to co-develop AI-enabled manned-unmanned teaming systems for future South Korean air operations. The partnership strengthens Seoul’s ambition to merge AI autonomy with air combat capability and boost its defense export competitiveness.
On 20 October 2025, Korea Aerospace Industries confirmed a memorandum of understanding with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions to co-develop manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) solutions that integrate piloted aircraft with collaborative drones, as reported by AJP News Agency. The agreement gives KAI a U.S. partner with proven unmanned combat platforms while aligning with Seoul’s push to inject AI and autonomy into next-generation airpower. The timing coincides with South Korea’s wider effort to scale AI-enabled systems and expand defense exports, turning this partnership into both an industrial and strategic signal.
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The image shows the South Korean KF-21 Boramae fighter jet flying beneath the American Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie unmanned combat drone, both showcasing sleek stealth designs and advanced aerodynamics (Picture Source: Kratos and KAI)
The partnership formalizes a division of strengths: KAI brings its status as Korea’s only full-spectrum aircraft system integrator and an AI-pilot roadmap, while Kratos contributes a portfolio spanning the XQ-58A Valkyrie collaborative combat aircraft and high-performance target drones proven across U.S. programs. The MOU targets Korea’s domestic market first, with a tandem plan for global opportunities once a baseline MUM-T architecture is matured. This lays a pathway from lab demonstrations to a deployable family of systems that can be tailored to allied requirements.
KAI has spent the last two years building the foundations for autonomy, unveiling its AI-pilot initiative, branded KAILOT/K-AI Pilot, and earmarking the FA-50 as a testbed to progress from supervised autonomy toward formation tactics and basic combat manoeuvring. In parallel, Kratos has evolved Valkyrie and related systems through U.S. experimentation and service evaluations, including recent steps toward production-representative configurations and new payload concepts. Together, these strands create a credible route to pairing a Korean crewed platform with an affordable, survivable drone wingman.
Operationally, South Korea’s approach is to transition MUM-T from bespoke trials to a repeatable, exportable capability: human-on-the-loop cockpit control, onboard AI for distributed sensing and fires, and mission systems that allow a fighter like KF-21 or FA-50 to task multiple drones for reconnaissance, electronic attack, decoying, or precision strike. Kratos’s experience with rails, containerized launch, and runway operations broadens the concept of employment, from dispersed land sites to naval decks, fitting Korea’s emphasis on resilience and rapid surge capacity under contested conditions.
The advantages of this KAI–Kratos model are best understood against global benchmarks. In the United States, the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program has narrowed its Increment 1 vendor field and programmed multi-year funding to move from prototypes to production, establishing the world’s pacing standard for crewed-uncrewed air combat. In Türkiye, MUM-T is moving from concept to implementation as Aselsan embeds a sixth-generation air-combat vision into KAAN and teams it with Baykar’s jet-powered Kızılelma and TUSAŞ’s ANKA-3 via the Indigenous Flight Datalink, adding stealth-mode communications and network-centric control that speed iteration and sovereign mission-system integration. The Korean-U.S. pairing thus blends test-proven American architectures with Korea’s integrator discipline and export focus, while remaining competitive with Türkiye’s fast-moving, cost-efficient model.
Strategically, a mature Korean MUM-T product would recalibrate Northeast Asia’s air balance at three levels. Geopolitically, it supports Seoul’s goal of technological sovereignty in AI-enabled air combat while offering allies a non-U.S., NATO-compatible option for loyal-wingman capabilities, especially attractive to countries balancing great-power relations. Geostrategically, it enables distributed air operations and massed effects without proportional pilot risk, complicating adversary targeting across the peninsula and nearby maritime approaches. Militarily, it promises higher sortie generation and sensor density at lower marginal cost, allowing Korea to field and export scalable “force multipliers” synchronized with crewed fighters and ground-based kill webs. These vectors align with Seoul’s stated intent to expand AI and unmanned systems as a pillar of defense modernization.
On budgets and contracting, the KAI–Kratos arrangement is currently an MOU; no program-of-record production contract has been announced for this specific MUM-T product. However, comparable efforts indicate the likely order of magnitude and pathways. In the U.S., open budget documents and analyses point to several billions of dollars planned through the late 2020s for CCA, with unit-cost and lifecycle-cost debates shaping affordability targets for attritable wingmen. In Korea, defense planners are increasing topline spending and have publicly prioritized AI and unmanned capabilities, creating a domestic funding environment into which a KAI-led MUM-T line could slot, first as demonstrations, then as a formal DAPA acquisition. Kratos’s most recent headline collaborations include a July 2025 Airbus–Kratos teaming for a German UCCA, underscoring the company’s traction with European customers but distinct from the Korean MOU.
Against that backdrop, the development procedure in Korea will likely mirror phased milestones: lab-based autonomy and human-machine interface maturation on FA-50/KF-21 rigs; captive-carry and formation tests; live mission-system trials with representative drones; and progressive operational assessments with the Republic of Korea Air Force. Kratos’s modular architectures and launch concepts can compress timelines by reusing flight-proven airframes, while KAI’s integrator role will ensure mission-system harmonization, safety cases, and certification within Korean standards and export frameworks.
The partnership signals a practical course for turning AI-enabled teaming from concept into capability, anchored in Korea’s system-integration strengths and Kratos’s unmanned pedigree. If Seoul aligns program funding and user trials over the next budget cycles, a Korean MUM-T family could emerge as a credible regional alternative to U.S. CCA paths and Türkiye’s sovereign solutions, interoperable where needed, exportable by design, and tuned to contested airspaces in Asia and beyond.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
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Korea Aerospace Industries signed an MoU with Kratos Defense to co-develop AI-enabled manned-unmanned teaming systems for future South Korean air operations. The partnership strengthens Seoul’s ambition to merge AI autonomy with air combat capability and boost its defense export competitiveness.
On 20 October 2025, Korea Aerospace Industries confirmed a memorandum of understanding with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions to co-develop manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) solutions that integrate piloted aircraft with collaborative drones, as reported by AJP News Agency. The agreement gives KAI a U.S. partner with proven unmanned combat platforms while aligning with Seoul’s push to inject AI and autonomy into next-generation airpower. The timing coincides with South Korea’s wider effort to scale AI-enabled systems and expand defense exports, turning this partnership into both an industrial and strategic signal.
The image shows the South Korean KF-21 Boramae fighter jet flying beneath the American Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie unmanned combat drone, both showcasing sleek stealth designs and advanced aerodynamics (Picture Source: Kratos and KAI)
The partnership formalizes a division of strengths: KAI brings its status as Korea’s only full-spectrum aircraft system integrator and an AI-pilot roadmap, while Kratos contributes a portfolio spanning the XQ-58A Valkyrie collaborative combat aircraft and high-performance target drones proven across U.S. programs. The MOU targets Korea’s domestic market first, with a tandem plan for global opportunities once a baseline MUM-T architecture is matured. This lays a pathway from lab demonstrations to a deployable family of systems that can be tailored to allied requirements.
KAI has spent the last two years building the foundations for autonomy, unveiling its AI-pilot initiative, branded KAILOT/K-AI Pilot, and earmarking the FA-50 as a testbed to progress from supervised autonomy toward formation tactics and basic combat manoeuvring. In parallel, Kratos has evolved Valkyrie and related systems through U.S. experimentation and service evaluations, including recent steps toward production-representative configurations and new payload concepts. Together, these strands create a credible route to pairing a Korean crewed platform with an affordable, survivable drone wingman.
Operationally, South Korea’s approach is to transition MUM-T from bespoke trials to a repeatable, exportable capability: human-on-the-loop cockpit control, onboard AI for distributed sensing and fires, and mission systems that allow a fighter like KF-21 or FA-50 to task multiple drones for reconnaissance, electronic attack, decoying, or precision strike. Kratos’s experience with rails, containerized launch, and runway operations broadens the concept of employment, from dispersed land sites to naval decks, fitting Korea’s emphasis on resilience and rapid surge capacity under contested conditions.
The advantages of this KAI–Kratos model are best understood against global benchmarks. In the United States, the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program has narrowed its Increment 1 vendor field and programmed multi-year funding to move from prototypes to production, establishing the world’s pacing standard for crewed-uncrewed air combat. In Türkiye, MUM-T is moving from concept to implementation as Aselsan embeds a sixth-generation air-combat vision into KAAN and teams it with Baykar’s jet-powered Kızılelma and TUSAŞ’s ANKA-3 via the Indigenous Flight Datalink, adding stealth-mode communications and network-centric control that speed iteration and sovereign mission-system integration. The Korean-U.S. pairing thus blends test-proven American architectures with Korea’s integrator discipline and export focus, while remaining competitive with Türkiye’s fast-moving, cost-efficient model.
Strategically, a mature Korean MUM-T product would recalibrate Northeast Asia’s air balance at three levels. Geopolitically, it supports Seoul’s goal of technological sovereignty in AI-enabled air combat while offering allies a non-U.S., NATO-compatible option for loyal-wingman capabilities, especially attractive to countries balancing great-power relations. Geostrategically, it enables distributed air operations and massed effects without proportional pilot risk, complicating adversary targeting across the peninsula and nearby maritime approaches. Militarily, it promises higher sortie generation and sensor density at lower marginal cost, allowing Korea to field and export scalable “force multipliers” synchronized with crewed fighters and ground-based kill webs. These vectors align with Seoul’s stated intent to expand AI and unmanned systems as a pillar of defense modernization.
On budgets and contracting, the KAI–Kratos arrangement is currently an MOU; no program-of-record production contract has been announced for this specific MUM-T product. However, comparable efforts indicate the likely order of magnitude and pathways. In the U.S., open budget documents and analyses point to several billions of dollars planned through the late 2020s for CCA, with unit-cost and lifecycle-cost debates shaping affordability targets for attritable wingmen. In Korea, defense planners are increasing topline spending and have publicly prioritized AI and unmanned capabilities, creating a domestic funding environment into which a KAI-led MUM-T line could slot, first as demonstrations, then as a formal DAPA acquisition. Kratos’s most recent headline collaborations include a July 2025 Airbus–Kratos teaming for a German UCCA, underscoring the company’s traction with European customers but distinct from the Korean MOU.
Against that backdrop, the development procedure in Korea will likely mirror phased milestones: lab-based autonomy and human-machine interface maturation on FA-50/KF-21 rigs; captive-carry and formation tests; live mission-system trials with representative drones; and progressive operational assessments with the Republic of Korea Air Force. Kratos’s modular architectures and launch concepts can compress timelines by reusing flight-proven airframes, while KAI’s integrator role will ensure mission-system harmonization, safety cases, and certification within Korean standards and export frameworks.
The partnership signals a practical course for turning AI-enabled teaming from concept into capability, anchored in Korea’s system-integration strengths and Kratos’s unmanned pedigree. If Seoul aligns program funding and user trials over the next budget cycles, a Korean MUM-T family could emerge as a credible regional alternative to U.S. CCA paths and Türkiye’s sovereign solutions, interoperable where needed, exportable by design, and tuned to contested airspaces in Asia and beyond.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
