Shield AI has opened an engineering office in Bengaluru, where Indian engineers will develop and test autonomy software for Indian aircraft and defence systems. The Shield AI Bengaluru office is the US defence technology company’s second base in India, after New Delhi, and it will work on Hivemind, the software platform Shield uses to build, deploy and operate autonomous systems. The company announced the opening on 13 November and said it is hiring engineers in five areas.
Shield AI Bengaluru office focuses on Hivemind
The Shield AI Bengaluru team will work at the GoodWorks GCC Nexus in the city. Its engineers will develop and test Hivemind software, which lets aircraft and other machines fly and operate without a pilot, and in some cases without GPS or a radio link. Shield says Hivemind has been piloted on more than 40 platforms, including F-16 fighter aircraft, jet-powered uncrewed aircraft, helicopters, uncrewed surface vessels, ground vehicles and a satellite in low Earth orbit. The Bengaluru work will adapt that software for Indian aircraft and defence systems.
Sarjan Shah, managing director for India at Shield AI, drew the line between the two offices. “New Delhi brought us closer to our customers. Bengaluru gives us the engineering team to build for them,” he said. The New Delhi office, which opened in April, leads work with the Ministry of Defence, the armed forces and Indian industry. Bengaluru will supply the software engineering behind that work, with the two offices working as one team across customer engagement and product building.
Shield AI Bengaluru hiring and India plans
The Shield AI Bengaluru office is hiring engineers in autonomy, flight software, simulation, systems integration, and test and evaluation. The company has not said how many people it plans to hire, and it has not put a figure on its investment in the office. The announcement described the roles rather than a recruitment target, and the hiring will run alongside the engineering work already under way. Shield is looking for people who want their software running on real systems in the field, according to its announcement.
The Shield AI Bengaluru office builds on work Shield already does in India. In November 2024, the company agreed a partnership with JSW Defence to indigenise and manufacture its V-BAT unmanned aircraft system in India. In January 2026, Shield announced that India had selected its V-BAT aircraft and Hivemind autonomy software licences for the Indian Army. The V-BAT is a Group 3 unmanned aircraft built for military operations, and the licences let the Army run Hivemind software on its own aircraft.
Defence self-reliance and the Army doctrine
Shield tied the Bengaluru opening to India’s push for self-reliance in defence. In October 2026, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh released the Indian Army’s Land Warfare Doctrine 2026, which called for faster progress in artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. The Shield AI Bengaluru office is meant to answer that call from inside India, building software in the country for the country’s own aircraft and systems. The company’s line is that autonomy should be built in India, for India, rather than imported as a finished product.
The opening comes during a busy period for the company. On 5 November, Shield announced an agreement to acquire Echodyne Corp in a deal valued at up to $5.3 billion, alongside plans to raise $2.5 billion. The company, founded in 2015 in San Diego, builds Hivemind mission autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and simulation technology. It has offices and facilities across the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Its products are in use with the US Department of Defense and allied militaries, and the Shield AI Bengaluru office adds an engineering base in India to that work.
The Shield AI Bengaluru office opened without a hiring target or investment figure. The office is open, the roles are listed, and the first test will be whether the Bengaluru team can turn Hivemind into software that Indian aircraft can fly with.