When Yair, Aviram, and I founded Bluewhite in 2017, we brought with us decades of experience from the Israeli Air Force. We knew how to build complex unmanned systems and push the boundaries of aviation and defense. Yet, when we launched this company, we chose a very different battlefield: the farm.
Driven by one of our deepest core values—Love of the Land—we looked at the looming global food crisis and severe labor shortages, and we decided to act. We spent the last seven years building a hardware-agnostic, physical AI platform that retrofits standard tractors into fully autonomous fleets. We built technology to feed the world, making farms more resilient, efficient, and sustainable.
Today, Bluewhite is being acquired by Elbit Systems to lead the global revolution in ground robotics in allied defense. Some would argue that implementing our technology in defense might seem like a drastic pivot. But for us, it is natural and urgent.
The Reality of October 7th and a New Global Order
We named Bluewhite over the colors of our flag. We are proud Israelis. For us, everything changed on October 7th. The devastating attacks on our home shattered the reality we lived in. For those of us who have spent our lives in uniform, watching our friends, our colleagues, and our children head to the frontlines was a profound wake-up call.
We are witnessing a massive shift in global world order. Asymmetrical warfare, shifting geopolitical alliances, and the rapid proliferation of weaponized technology have made the modern battlespace more dangerous and unpredictable than ever. We realized that the defense industry needed to adapt faster than the threats we are facing.
As a team of engineers, operators, and veterans, we looked at the physical AI we had perfected for the chaotic, unstructured environments of orchards and vineyards. We realized that a robot navigating an unpredictable, GPS-denied farm is relying on the exact same edge computing, sensor fusion, and autonomous decision-making required to navigate a rugged, hostile battlefield.
We Can Save Lives, and We Should Do It
In modern warfare, human lives are the most precious resource. We are losing too many of our best and brightest to tasks that machines should be doing. Clearing a hostile route, delivering logistics under fire, or scouting a dangerous urban environment should not require putting a soldier in the line of fire.
The equation for us became incredibly simple. We have the technology to replace humans with intelligent machines in the most dangerous environments on earth. We can save lives. And because we can, we have a moral obligation to do it.
Partnering with Elbit Systems allows us to take the physical AI we built and scale it to the defense market instantly. We can run fast with our software, while relying on Elbit’s massive manufacturing capabilities and battle-tested trust to deploy autonomous ground vehicles (UGVs) on a global scale.
Our Unwavering Commitment to Agriculture
As we step into this new chapter of defense, I want to be entirely clear to our investors, partners, growers, and dealers in the agricultural world: we deeply appreciate all the work we have done together, and we are not stepping away.
Our mission in agriculture remains vital. The world still needs to eat, and the farming labor crisis is not solving itself. Elbit resources will allow us to accelerate our technology development and deployment. We hope to provide our autonomous platforms to more markets in the future.
Love of the Land means nurturing the earth to provide for our families, but it also means stepping up to protect that land and those families when they are threatened.
We built Bluewhite to empower humanity to move forward leveraging autonomy. Whether it is ensuring a farmer can grow their crops or ensuring a soldier comes home safely to their family, our mission remains the same. The future of autonomous systems is here, and we are ready to build it.
Ben Alfi,
CEO and Founder, Bluewhite