Ghost Robotics crouching mechanical canine kicked off The Drones & Robotics AI Summit final month in New York. Watching Gavin Kenneally (CEO) current the Imaginative and prescient 60 and listening to about its lots of of deployments with the US navy, everybody within the packed home buzzed with pleasure. Bodily AI has lastly come of age. In accordance with most estimates, enterprise and personal fairness investments within the area have exceeded $30 billion within the final 12 months, greater than double final yr’s exercise. Rather a lot has modified within the yr since internet hosting the final Summit; the 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.
Following The Summit, I sat with Bentzion Levinson, founder and CEO of Heven AeroTech, for espresso in Jerusalem, Israel, between sirens warning of Iranian ballistic missiles. Throughout our hour-long (alert-free) assembly, he shared with me the early days of his Unmanned Aerial Automobile (UAV) firm’s journey to grow to be Israel’s newest unicorn startup. One of many greatest takeaways from our assembly was his adoption of quantum computing to advance sensing information as a part of a wider partnership with IonQ, their largest exterior shareholder. The easiest way to know the alternatives that Heven provides is to listen to Mr. Levinson’s story and the evolution of his firm and its dedication to fixing actual issues for warfighters all over the place.
The entrepreneur shared his founding story, “And after my (navy) service, I left as a Fight Commander. I volunteered for a nationwide venture. And thru this venture, I noticed that drones are wonderful. They’ve wonderful potential, however virtually all drones available in the market had been flying cameras or flying sensors, a whole lot of them out of China again within the day, and nonetheless in the present day.” 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 determine and quickly extinguish the threats. As he continued, “We used drones at first to determine fires after which to place out fires. And that’s how we transitioned from flying cameras to flying robots.” It was this revelation of the broader alternatives transferring from sensing information to performing on it with UAVs that gave beginning to his billion-dollar concept.
From this early expertise, Levinson recognized two distinct use instances: response instances and mission payloads. “One in every of them is what we name extra tactical, and that is true for each protection and business use instances.” Citing examples from his earlier expertise, he continued, “If you wish to do a mission like placing out a hearth, you’re not going very far. It’s simply that if you will get there inside a couple of minutes, you may make an enormous distinction. However say you wish to go inside a 10-mile radius, with the emphasis on heavy payloads. 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 will probably be, however we’ve to have the ability to help clients. That’s once we additionally realized that a whole lot of the use instances are going to be extra long-range.”
Whereas working with the Israel Protection Forces, the previous soldier skilled these challenges firsthand and got down to fill the market hole along with his present hydrogen-powered UAV. As Levinson defined, “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 power density to get you there. So, historically, drones would use combustion or jet-powered methods. The issue is that these methods have vital thermal signatures that may be recognized. They’ve a major noise signature. You must begin getting gasoline round these; they make them mainly irrelevant for many protection use instances and really difficult for business use. Think about, wherever you’re sitting in the present day, 100 flying garden mowers exterior, or flying jets. Everyone knows what it sounds prefer to have a airplane flying over you. So planes or drones with combustion or jet engines can’t actually scale within the business surroundings both, and that’s what led us to hydrogen gasoline cells. So our first product line is heavy elevate. Battery-powered drones can carry as much as 100 kilos of payload and carry out quite a lot of missions, actually persevering with the preliminary concept we had. And the second is extra centered on long-range stealth operations that we pioneered over the previous 5-6 years, with a deal with hydrogen gasoline cells. And in the present day we’ve refueling stations too. We’re working very intently as the one authorized hydrogen drone for lengthy endurance, self-driven, for the US authorities and Israel.”
In November 2025, IonQ (NYSE: 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 applied sciences, Heven AeroTech will ship a brand new class of unparalleled UAS capabilities. This partnership positions Heven’s drones to sort out missions no different participant can with unmatched precision, resilience, and safety.”
Levinson unpacked the IonQ relationship additional and the varieties of new improvements he’s presently implementing with quantum computing. “Finish of final yr, we did an enormous spherical, at a billion-dollar valuation, with a public firm, IonQ, a pacesetter within the quantum ecosystem. It was to help our development, together with investments in extra applied sciences, akin to quantum applied sciences. So since then, we’ve actually centered on manufacturing. We’re launching a really massive, vital facility that’ll be each a gigafactory for drones and an innovation heart.” He added that this gigafactory will probably be situated in Virginia, as their buyer base is primarily within the DC space.
Heven’s founder excitedly illustrated how quantum is like GenAI on steroids for autonomy, “So the drone platforms are solely pretty much as good as what they’ll do on a mission. There are a number of mission profiles. And in our case, it’s much more difficult as a result of if you happen to’re engaged on a battlefield and also you’re above the ocean, navigating and understanding the place you’re with out GPS may be very tough. This potential to speak introduced our analysis groups to quantum applied sciences, not essentially quantum computing, however quantum sensing for navigation and quantum networking applied sciences for communications. These options mainly allow us to navigate and talk anyplace on the planet with none GPS or a signature.”
The drone pioneer continued, “So there are different methods of doing navigation, for instance, doing vision-based navigation, the place you take a look at the bottom, and you may know the place you’re with very superior software program, but it surely doesn’t work above the ocean. Some corporations have been utilizing fiber-optic connections on drones, particularly small drones, to speak and navigate, however once more, these methods don’t work over lots of of miles. And that’s what introduced us to navigation utilizing quantum sensors and really superior quantum clocks. ”
In September 2025, shortly earlier than their funding in Heven, IonQ acquired Vector Atomic, a pacesetter in “superior quantum sensors for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) functions.” In accordance with the press launch, Vector had over $200 million in authorities contracts associated to nationwide safety. Because the announcement additional detailed, its know-how portfolio included “high-performance clocks, synchronization {hardware}, gravimeters, and inertial sensors, additional establishing IonQ as the one quantum firm integrating superior computing, networking, and sensing capabilities inside a single platform.” The acquisition of Vector solidified IonQ’s 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.
Discussing IonQ’s distinctive tech portfolio, Levinson expressed, “We’re working with IonQ, which is the biggest commonplace on quantum on the planet in the present day. And we’re working collectively to make these methods light-weight and match for drone functions.” After explaining how quantum can work in GPS-denied environments, he shared that it could additionally 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. We’ve got satellite tv for pc communication, Starlink, and others. The problem is that a whole lot of the stuff on the market leaves signatures that may determine the place a drone is flying. So quantum networking know-how, which includes a number of quantum sensors speaking with one another, can allow these methods to speak with none signatures. You may determine the place it’s coming from, and it’s mainly unjammable.”
The startup entrepreneur summed up the connection, “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 essential to making sure drones in future conflicts truly work. The best way 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.” That is amplified by the fee financial savings of utilizing Heven’s platform, which is amplified by quantum-enabled sensors. “We’re normally about 5% of what a conventional navy drone would value. Our drones are multi-use, so the worth you get for flight hours is clearly considerably larger than these [single-use drones]. And we use these methods as mom ships, for instance, to launch quite a lot of capabilities, from heavy-lift, long-endurance, quantum-enabled drones. So once more, we’re a fraction of the worth of conventional options.”
From a aggressive standpoint, Heven is presently working on an open street. Whereas corporations like Doosan have hydrogen UAVs, and Elroy and Sabrewing manufacture hybrids, nobody in the present day 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 that can finally launch on this rising defense-tech business will contest Heven for market share. Lengthy-term, their quantum edge with IonQ might grow to be their deepest moat to guard the fortress.
As Levinson boasts, “We’ve type of been the pioneers and have a extremely good benefit. Once more, it’s 5 to six years of fixing many various components of the elements. We count on extra of the market to get on this wave. We’ve got a really vital place on the IP and patent sides, in addition to in sensible partnerships and know-how. So I feel we’ve good positioning in the present day. So we’re actually working onerous to get to scale and get to the sector at scale, and are actually stable about our place because the market chief within the area.”
Reprinted with permission.
