Scout invited TechCrunch for an exclusive tour of its training operations at a military base it asked us not to name.

The company is building an AI model it calls “Fury” to operate and command military assets, first for logistical support and then, soon, for autonomous weapons. CTO Collin Otis compares this work, which builds on existing large language models (LLMs), to training soldiers.

“[Soldiers] start when they’re 18 years old, and sometimes they even start after college, so you want to start with that base level of intelligence,” Otis told TechCrunch. “It’s useful to start with someone who’s already made an investment and then say, ‘Hey, what do I have to do to teach this thing to be an incredible military AGI, versus just being a broadly intelligent AGI?’”

Scout has secured military technology development contracts totaling $11 million from organizations like DARPA, the Army Applications Laboratory, and other Department of Defense customers. It is one of 20 autonomy companies whose technology is being used by the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division during its regular training cycle at Fort Hood in Texas, with the expectation that the unit will bring along products that prove themselves when it next deploys in 2027.