Pentagon awards $24M for Phantom humanoid robot that already fought in Ukraine

The U.S. Department of Defense has signed research contracts worth $24 million with San Francisco startup Foundation Future Industries. The funding will go toward testing the Phantom humanoid robot for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Two unarmed prototypes have already undergone field trials in the combat zone in Ukraine — the company calls this the world's first instance of humanoid robots operating in an active conflict.

Foundation CEO Sanket Parak said he would immediately arm the Phantom if the military made such a request. Statements like this have already drawn concern from human rights groups and non-profits.

The startup was founded in 2024 in San Francisco. Parak previously led Synapse, a fintech platform that went bankrupt the same year. Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, serves as a strategic advisor. He promoted the project on Fox Business under the slogan "We are America First. We have to win this race." The combination of an ambitious founder with a checkered financial past and the Trump name on the board quickly attracted attention from both critics and investors.

The Phantom MK-1 stands 1.75 meters tall, weighs about 80 kg, and moves at 1.7 m/s. It can carry up to 20 kg of payload and is equipped with eight cameras, forgoing bulky LiDAR. The robot uses proprietary cycloidal actuators with torque up to 160 Nm. The AI stack translates operator commands into motion through an LLM pipeline, but the final decision on lethal action remains with a human.