The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has unveiled an 11-foot tall flight test vehicle developed with artificial intelligence, marking one of the first public demonstrations of the White House’s Genesis Mission.
Named Aires Tide, the vehicle went on display at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington on June 25. It is designed to collect data on the extreme heat, vibration, and other stresses experienced during high-speed flight by systems used in the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
“Aires Tide is a remarkable early demonstration of how NNSA is putting the Genesis Mission into action,” NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams said in a statement announcing the project.
The demonstrator was developed using artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and 3D printing. Officials described it as a proof of concept rather than an operational system.
The program brought together researchers from Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Kansas City National Security Campus. Development also relied on the Venado and El Capitan supercomputers.
Researchers carried out two drop tests at the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah in May. Sandia said the vehicle was developed between October 2025 and March 2026, compressing to five months a process that would normally take about two years.
Williams said the project combined AI with advanced manufacturing “to pioneer a faster, more efficient model to design and produce capabilities for national security while keeping human judgment firmly at the center.”
The agency did not release detailed cost figures but said the new approach reduced both development time and costs compared with traditional methods. Sandia also confirmed that a half-scale version completed testing on May 19 before the full-sized demonstrator was revealed.
Aires Tide was developed under the Genesis Mission, launched by President Donald Trump through an executive order in November 2025. The initiative seeks to link artificial intelligence with the Department of Energy’s supercomputers to speed up scientific research, including national security applications.
The executive order compared the ambition of the program with that of the Manhattan Project, whose wartime laboratories later formed the core of today’s Department of Energy national laboratory system. The comparison reflects the scale of the scientific effort.
For decades, the national laboratories have relied on advanced computer simulations to maintain the U.S. nuclear stockpile without underground nuclear testing. Genesis expands on that foundation by integrating AI more deeply into research and engineering.
Officials say Aires Tide is intended to demonstrate a faster way of designing and testing future technologies. Data gathered during its flight tests will help guide future research across the laboratory network.
