Palm Beach-Based Ondas Expands AI + Autonomy Footprint With $125M Cyberhawk Acquisition
West Palm Beach’s growing profile as an emerging hub for advanced technology and defense innovation took another step forward this week as Ondas Holdings Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire UK-based Cyberhawk Innovations Ltd in a $125 million deal aimed at accelerating the company’s expansion into AI-driven infrastructure intelligence.
The transaction underscores a broader shift taking place across South Florida’s innovation ecosystem, where defense technology, autonomous systems, and applied artificial intelligence are increasingly converging with real-world industrial use cases in energy, utilities, and critical infrastructure.
A West Palm Beach Platform Company Scaling Globally
Ondas, which is now headquartered in West Palm Beach, has rapidly evolved into a multi-domain autonomy and robotics company focused on defense, homeland security, public safety, and critical infrastructure markets.
The company develops autonomous systems across air, ground, and stratospheric environments, including unmanned aerial systems, counter-drone technologies, robotic ground platforms, and integrated sensing and communications systems used in intelligence, surveillance, and operational missions.
From its South Florida base, Ondas has positioned itself as part of a growing cluster of companies building technologies that bridge defense applications and commercial infrastructure resilience.
Cyberhawk Adds Industrial AI And Infrastructure Data Scale
Cyberhawk brings a complementary commercial platform anchored in infrastructure inspection and AI-enabled analytics. Founded in 2008, the company has become a global leader in drone-based inspection services and visualization software for utility, energy, and industrial operators.
Through its cloud-based iHawk platform, Cyberhawk enables customers to visualize, manage, and analyze complex infrastructure assets using digital twin workflows, geospatial intelligence, and AI-assisted analytics.
The company has:
Inspected more than 500,000 infrastructure assets
Built a proprietary dataset of industrial inspection intelligence
Established operations in 40 countries
d mDeveloped long-term relationships with blue-chip customers including major utilities and global energy operators
This data-rich foundation has become a key strategic asset in the growing field of industrial AI.
Cyberhawk is projected to generate more than $45 million in revenue for its fiscal year ending March 2027, with approximately 95% recurring revenue driven by multi-year contracts and software subscriptions. The company also maintains a $95 million backlog, reflecting strong enterprise demand.
Ondas expects the acquisition to strengthen its recurring revenue base while expanding its exposure to industrial SaaS and AI-enabled infrastructure markets.
"Cyberhawk has been at the forefront of drone-enabled inspection since 2008", said Chris Fleming, founder and CEO of Cyberhawk. "Long before the technology was widely understood. We built the company from the ground up, scaling globally and proving both the commercial model and the real-world value of autonomous inspection. Today, we're excited to join forces with Ondas to accelerate the adoption of this technology - improving data quality while fundamentally reducing risk and human exposure across critical infrastructure."
South Florida’s Emerging “Autonomy + Defense + AI” Corridor
The acquisition is also notable for what it signals regionally.
West Palm Beach, alongside Miami and the broader South Florida corridor, has been steadily attracting companies in defense technology, robotics, cybersecurity, and applied AI. The region’s proximity to aerospace, maritime infrastructure, Latin American markets, and federal defense interest has positioned it as a growing node for dual-use innovation.
The region is increasingly home to a growing number of investment groups focused on federal defense and national security technologies, including the recent launch of Verix Equity Partners, a private equity firm targeting the national security ecosystem, as well as New World Angels’ Space & Defense Ventures Group, both based in Boca Raton.
Ondas’ presence in West Palm Beach reinforces that trajectory, adding a publicly traded autonomy and robotics company with global ambitions to the region’s evolving tech landscape.
Rather than relying solely on software startups or fintech growth, South Florida’s innovation economy is increasingly expanding into:
Autonomous systems and robotics
Defense and homeland security technologies
Industrial AI and infrastructure intelligence
Energy and utility resilience platforms
“Cyberhawk is a market leader in critical infrastructure intelligence and a transformative addition to Ondas,” said Eric Brock, Chairman and CEO of Ondas. “It brings a differentiated platform combining software, data, AI-enabled analytics, and deep expertise across global energy and utility networks. This acquisition strengthens our position in critical infrastructure markets and advances our dual-use strategy across defense, security, and industrial applications.”
Building An Autonomous Intelligence Ecosystem
Ondas has described the acquisition as a step toward building a unified autonomous intelligence platform that connects sensing, data collection, analytics, and decision support systems into a single operational ecosystem.
Together, Ondas and Cyberhawk aim to integrate drone and autonomous sensing systems, industrial inspection workflows, AI-driven asset intelligence, digital twin visualization platforms, and mission-critical decision support tools. At the core of this model is the convergence of physical infrastructure and artificial intelligence, where real-world data captured through drones and autonomous systems is continuously processed to improve operational safety, resilience, and efficiency across critical infrastructure environments.
A key advantage of the combined platform is Cyberhawk’s extensive industrial dataset, built from hundreds of thousands of inspected assets and more than two decades of infrastructure monitoring experience. This data foundation creates a compounding edge in AI model development, enabling more accurate defect detection, predictive maintenance, and infrastructure health analytics. For Ondas, it further strengthens its positioning in what is increasingly referred to as “physical-world AI”—systems designed to interpret and act on real-world operational environments rather than purely digital data.
West Palm Beach As A Launchpad For Dual-Use Innovation
The acquisition of Cyberhawk represents more than corporate expansion; it reflects the strengthening of West Palm Beach as a base for advanced autonomy and infrastructure intelligence companies.
As Ondas integrates industrial AI, drone systems, and defense-grade autonomy platforms under one umbrella, South Florida is increasingly positioned not just as a destination for tech relocation, but as an emerging center for next-generation physical-world intelligence systems.
In that context, this deal is both a global technology story and a regional signal: West Palm Beach is beginning to play a role in shaping how autonomous systems and AI are deployed across critical infrastructure worldwide.
