Pentagon Awards $86M for Laser Weapons to Counter Drone Swarms

The U.S. Department of Defense awarded other transaction agreements worth a combined $86 million on July 9, 2026, to nLIGHT Defense and Lockheed Martin Aculight to develop directed energy weapons capable of defeating adversary drone swarms and cruise missiles. The contracts fund the Joint Laser Weapon System (JLWS) program, run by the Pentagon’s Research and Engineering directorate.

Contract split and program goals

Of the initial $86 million, $44 million went to nLIGHT, based in Camas, Washington. Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael said in a statement, “We must actively defend the homeland against emerging threats. We are partnering with industry to rapidly deliver deep magazine directed energy capabilities to the Joint Force.” The JLWS program carries a total ceiling of $847 million and sits within one of six Critical Technology Areas designated by the Research and Engineering undersecretariat.

Power targets and technical roadmap

Initial JLWS prototypes are set to deliver roughly 150 kilowatts of power, a threshold framed as meeting “urgent operational demands” against small UAS and drone swarms. The program’s roadmap calls for scaling power to a 300-500 kilowatt range to be effective against cruise missiles, alongside parallel development of a 500-kilowatt integrated system. Fiscal 2027 budget documents describe the goal as building, delivering, and demonstrating “an operationally relevant capability” while driving down engineering costs.

Two companies, two different pedigrees

nLIGHT recently showcased a 70-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System alongside 30-kilowatt and 10-kilowatt high-energy lasers, drawing on 25 years of laser power-scaling work and proprietary coherent beam-combination technology. Aculight, the other awardee, is known for a high-power, electrically driven laser built on spectral beam combining — technology already fielded on Lockheed Martin’s HELIOS integrated weapon system.

Built for modular, rapid deployment

Modular integration across ground and naval platforms sits at the center of the program’s design, with containerized form factors intended to allow rapid deployment across different geographic combatant commands. The approach reflects a broader push to reduce U.S. reliance on finite munitions stockpiles as low-cost drone threats proliferate globally — the core appeal of laser weapons being their “deep magazine”: each engagement draws on electrical power rather than consuming a missile.

A global race in laser weapons

The Pentagon’s JLWS program is not happening in isolation. Israel’s Iron Beam, developed to complement the Iron Dome, and the UK’s DragonFire program reflect the same global trend: building a defensive layer against low-cost aerial threats that does not depend on finite munitions stockpiles. The U.S. roadmap, scaling from 150 kilowatts up to 500 kilowatts, points to an ambition to address a wider set of threats — from small UAS to cruise missiles — within a single family of technology, rather than fielding separate systems for each threat tier.

Why directed energy is gaining priority

The Pentagon’s growing interest in laser weapons tracks directly with the spread of drone swarms and cheap cruise munitions across global conflicts. Traditional missile-based interception can burn through hundreds of thousands of dollars in munitions per engagement, while a laser weapon’s per-shot cost effectively reduces to an electricity bill. The JLWS program’s $847 million total ceiling, and its classification under one of six Critical Technology Areas, signal that the Pentagon now treats the technology less as an experimental concept and more as a capability it wants fielded.

The program’s fiscal 2027 budget language, which calls for an “operationally relevant capability,” suggests the next checkpoint to watch will be how quickly nLIGHT and Aculight can demonstrate their prototypes in the field. Whether the initial 150-kilowatt threshold is cleared on schedule will also shape how fast the program can move toward its ultimate 500-kilowatt goal.

Sources: DefenseScoop (July 9, 2026, statement from Pentagon CTO Emil Michael), Military.com (July 9, 2026), nLIGHT official corporate site.