Last Friday, Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) unveiled what it's calling the world's first sixth-generation bomber - the B-21 Raider.
It's a sleek and stylish plane whose ghostly visage and convex shape make it almost look like a UFO.
Almost every aspect of the B-21 remains classified, but Northrop Grumman and Air Force officials have made a few key points about it beyond improved stealth capability and longer range.
Essentially, the key advancement - the one that truly makes it a "sixth-generation" bomber - is the plane's open-systems architecture, which makes adaptable and upgradable.
That is, once deployed, the B-21 Raider's software can be updated to accommodate new cutting-edge weapons, like hypersonic vehicles and munitions, laser/directed energy weapons, advanced sensors, and any other bleeding-edge technology yet to be invented.
It also means that the software can be integrated with other weapons systems or even satellites to share data.
And that is a key point of emphasis for the Air Force and the U.S. military writ large.
You see, the Pentagon's ultimate goal is to have all of its equipment and all of its branches connected through the same massive cloud.
It wants a sprawling interconnected network, a digital ecosystem through which its platforms can communicate and coordinate.
And ideally, it wants that coordination to be autonomous.
If a satellite in orbit identifies enemy defenses, the location and nature of those defenses will be immediately communicated to forward fighter jets, incoming bomber formations, local ships at sea, and troops on the ground.
Each branch of the military will be as connected and coordinated as fingers on a hand.
It's a core concept that the military refers to as Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).
Part and parcel to that is the Air Force's "Skyborg" program, which aims to pair fighter jets with robot wingmen - or drones the fighters can deploy from their wings like a missile.
Flying alongside their larger companion, these drones can draw hostile fire, conduct reconnaissance, identify targets, jam enemy defenses, and even deploy their down ordnance.
They can also act as a decoy, drawing enemy fire away from the far costlier fifth- and sixth-generation jets.