Lockheed Martin Inaugural AI Fight Club™ Event Hosts Ansys Government Initiatives and ATG, Inc. for Groundbreaking Collaboration
Lessons learned in the cutting-edge simulation will push boundaries of artificial intelligence in support of national security
BETHESDA, Md., May 6, 2026. In a first-of-its-kind event, Lockheed Martin hosted two companies with innovative AI solutions in the inaugural AI Fight Club™ event — a large-scale AI-ready synthetic environment at the cutting-edge of AI for national security. AI Fight Club’s collaborative environment makes AI agent testing inside large-scale global simulation a reality — to ensure our AI is ready for reality without being limited by it.
At Lockheed Martin’s Center for Innovation “Lighthouse” in Virginia, the Lockheed Martin AI Center (LAIC) and Skunk Works® collaborated with teams from Ansys Government Initiatives (AGI) and ATG to execute a series of virtual 4 versus 4, aerial mission scenarios. The AI Fight Club team pitted state-of-the-art AI agents in live head-to-head contests to evaluate how AI agents can carry out the mission while taking minimal losses.
“The agents demonstrated exceptional potential in meeting the rigorous standards of the Department of War,” said Irene Helley, Vice President of Applied AI at Lockheed Martin. “Everything we learned together during AI Fight Club will be crucial in informing the development of future AI systems that support our nation’s warfighters.”
The AI Fight Club initiative, announced in June 2025, is a comprehensive testing ground to simulate and visualize how AI systems perform in air, land, sea, and space domains. The innovative environment is designed to accelerate the development and deployment of AI technologies that meet the exacting standards of the Department of War.
“Modern defense operations demand faster, more informed decisions across increasingly complex and contested environments. This exercise shows how combining trusted mission-level simulation with AI-driven insight provides the ability to explore scenarios, anticipate outcomes and validate operational plans before forces are ever deployed,” said Mike Pedaci, Vice President and General Manager of Ansys Government Initiatives.
“The AI Fight Club event was a glimpse at how defense autonomy development should work. Large-scale, simulation-first and collaborative. It can be a real force multiplier for development. ATG is proud to have been part of the inaugural event,” said Scott MacDonald, Director of Operations, ATG, Inc.
Participants in the event tested AI agents in a head-to-head series of scenarios using 4th generation aircraft. Teams focused on deploying and testing the best of their AI and advanced simulation capabilities in this scenario in this collaborative landscape.
Why It Matters:
This level of large-scale testing is infeasible in the real world. In just one month of testing alone inside the simulation environment, the Lockheed Martin AI Fight Club team:
- Ran 114 years’ worth of tests
- At an estimated cost of $540T+
- And would have expended 18M aircraft.
The AI Fight Club synthetic environment makes complex testing possible. This scale of testing would not be feasible in the real world until actual AI agent deployment. But in the synthetic environment, testing is unlimited. The data gathered from these simulations is critical in developing AI solutions that enhance speed, accuracy and decision making for military operations.
This allows Lockheed Martin and our collaborators to quickly prove and deploy their AI technologies and to give the warfighter verified, validated solutions.
Next Steps:
Lessons learned from the AI Fight Club collaboration will inform the future design, development and deployment of AI for the DoW.
Future AI Fight Club events will expand to include other emerging platforms and span across multiple domains.
