Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin Corporation is the largest US defense contractor by revenue and one of the largest defense companies in the world, with approximately $72 billion in annual revenue across its four operating segments — Aeronautics (F-35, F-16, F-22 fighter aircraft), Missiles and Fire Control (PAC-3 missile, HIMARS, JASSM, LRASM), Rotary and Mission Systems (Sikorsky helicopters, Aegis Combat System, naval combat systems), and Space (Orion spacecraft, GPS satellites, Trident missile). The company was formed from the 1995 merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta. Lockheed Martin trades on NYSE as LMT with a market capitalization of approximately $110 billion as of 2026 and employs approximately 122,000 workers globally — the bulk in the US.

The F-35 Lightning II program is the largest defense program in history (estimated $1.7 trillion in lifetime cost across 2,400+ aircraft) and is Lockheed Martin's largest single revenue contributor. The Aegis Combat System (used by the US Navy and allied navies for ballistic-missile defense) is integrated across multiple platforms. Sikorsky helicopters (acquired 2015 from United Technologies) provide the Black Hawk and CH-53K platforms to the US military and allied forces. The Skunk Works advanced-development division has been the historical innovator behind iconic platforms (the SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, Have Blue stealth demonstrator) and continues to operate as a quasi-startup-style organization within the company.

Lockheed Martin's AI strategy has accelerated significantly post-2022 with the Lockheed AI Initiative announcement and a series of strategic partnerships. The 2024 partnerships with Microsoft (for AI-augmented engineering and command-and-control), NVIDIA (for AI infrastructure across the company's mission-systems work), Meta (with permission for Llama-based defense applications), and Anthropic (Claude integration for select defense workflows) span the AI-foundation-model layer. The company's acquisition of Aegis-related AI capabilities, the Joint All-Domain Operations work for the US Air Force, and the Hypersonic Strike Weapon programs all rely heavily on AI. Lockheed Martin has also invested in autonomy-and-collaborative-platforms — the Skunk Works VISTA X-62 (AI-piloted F-16 demonstrator) is among the most-watched manned-unmanned-teaming demonstrations. Going forward, Lockheed Martin's AI strategic positioning emphasizes both extending traditional defense AI applications (target-recognition, ISR, sensor-fusion) and competing with the AI-native defense newcomers (Anduril, Shield AI, Saronic) on autonomy programs.