The United States will build the world’s most advanced warplane — the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, which is considered pivotal to preserving air superiority of the skies over competitors such as China.
The U.S. Air Force awarded a $20 billion contract to Boeing to develop the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet.
“Nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it’ll be known as the F-47,” U.S. President Donald Trump said at a March 2025 White House announcement attended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin.
Hegseth said the F-47’s advancements in stealth, communications and weapons technology include major advances over those of the F-22, which is the current Air Force air-superiority fighter.
Hegseth said the decision to proceed with the F-47 program sends a “very direct, clear message to our Allies that we’re not going anywhere … and to our enemies that we can, and we will be able to project power around the globe, unimpeded, for generations to come,” according to an Air Force news release.
The F-47 is part of a larger program that includes Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), or drones, as well as new jet engines, avionics, weapons systems, electronics and more, according to defense news website The War Zone. The F-47 is expected to fly alongside those uncrewed aircraft, which also are called “loyal wingman” drones.
In an Air Force statement after the White House announcement, Allvin said the U.S. has been flying experimental NGAD aircraft, or X-planes, for the past five years, covertly laying the foundation for the F-47. Allvin said he expects the F-47 to take its first flight during the current presidential administration and that it will cost less than the F-22.
“[T]he X-planes for this aircraft have been … flying hundreds of hours, testing cutting-edge concepts, and proving that we can push the envelope of technology with confidence,” Allvin said in the Air Force statement.
In December 2024, video of a Chinese warplane dubbed the J-36 circulated online, prompting speculation that Beijing is developing its own sixth-generation aircraft.
The U.S. disputes those reports.
“Despite what our adversaries claim,” Allvin said in the statement, “the F-47 is truly the world’s first crewed sixth-generation fighter, built to dominate the most capable peer adversary and operate in the most perilous threat environments imaginable.”
Fifth-generation fighters such as the F-22, as well as those of competitors China and Russia, focus on capabilities such as stealth, according to a March 2025 Newsweek magazine story. The next generation of warplanes such as the F-47, while being more difficult to detect, will integrate drones, artificial intelligence and upgraded weaponry, the magazine said.
“History has shown peer competition is a great driving force for the U.S. to muster its technological and fiscal might to leapfrog its opponents,” William Freer, of the U.K. think tank Council on Geostrategy, told Newsweek.