WindBorne secures up to $49M Air Force contract to supply AI-driven weather balloon data

WindBorne Systems, a Silicon Valley startup founded in 2015, secured a U.S. Air Force contract valued at up to $49 million to supply atmospheric data collected by its fleet of approximately 700 autonomous weather balloons. The contract enables the Air Force to place orders for data from specific regions and times, with $1.7 million in orders already placed and additional orders expected to follow.

The company integrates the collected sensor data into its AI weather forecasting model, WeatherMesh 6, which it asserts provides more accurate forecasts than the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ (ECMWF) traditional physics-based model. WindBorne co-founder and CTO Andrey Sushko stated the contract is intended to support the growth of the balloon constellation and fund research and development to improve hardware and performance.

The contract was awarded without competitive bidding, with WindBorne executives noting the government determined the company was the sole provider capable of meeting its operational data collection requirements. WindBorne CEO John Dean previously announced a $37 million Series B funding round in August 2026 to scale the business.

WindBorne’s autonomous balloons navigate by adjusting altitude, bleeding air, or dropping ballast to enter targeted wind streams, enabling data collection in extreme environments such as the eye of a typhoon. Sushko described this capability as a novel application of deep-learning models for operational decision-making.

The contract highlights the U.S. military’s increasing reliance on commercial AI systems for critical meteorological and defense applications, as AI-driven weather models have emerged as a productive use of deep-learning technology in recent years.