Company
A research company for problems with no off-the-shelf answer.
XS1 is a frontier AI research company. Four divisions — Cyber, Biosciences, Intelligence and Automation — push AI forward where the stakes are high, and take on contracted research and engineering for partners.
Open to
- Contracted research
- Contracted engineering
- Research partnerships
Company profile
As of October 2026
- What we are
Frontier AI research company
- Divisions
4
- Cyber
- Biosciences
- Intelligence
- Automation
- Flagship
- Project North Star
XS1 Cyber · Polaris, a 300B-parameter model, in post-training (stage 03 of 06)
- Engagement
By request
Contracted research and engineering, research partnerships
- Disclosure
After a first conversation
Qualified partners only
Why XS1
Named after a spaceplane meant to fly ten times in ten days.
XS1 takes its name from DARPA's XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane program (2013–2020), an effort to build an autonomous, reusable spaceplane that could fly ten times in ten days. Boeing's Phantom Express design was selected in 2017, and the program ended in 2020 before the vehicle flew. We borrowed the name for what it stood for: autonomous systems, built to fly again and again.
XS1 is not affiliated with DARPA.
2013DARPA's XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane program begins
2017Boeing's Phantom Express design is selected
2020The program ends before the vehicle ever flies
XS-1 flight profile
Illustrative
Program goal: ten flights in ten days
How we work
Research, then engineering, then deployment.
Across all four divisions, work moves from research to engineering to deployment, and each division runs its own version of this loop. Each stage ends in something concrete that the next one builds on.
Stage 01
Research
Investigate the technology, the architecture and the operational problem before committing to a design. Findings are written down, not assumed.
What comes out
Written findings, constraints and a defensible design direction.
Stage 02
Engineering
Turn the research into reliable software: models, services, infrastructure, interfaces and the contracts between them.
What comes out
Working systems with typed contracts and test coverage.
Stage 03
Deployment
Integrate into the real environment with observability, security boundaries and operational control.
What comes out
Operational systems with audit trails, built to be rolled back.
What we learn in deployment feeds the next round of research.
Principles
The standard we build to.
Five rules every XS1 division works to, in its research and in the systems it builds — regardless of domain, scale or environment.
- 01
Research before commitment
No design is chosen until the problem, its constraints and the evidence are written down.
- 02
Systems run inside boundaries
Every system operates within limits — permissions, scopes and controls — that are set before launch.
- 03
Everything is inspectable
Every action a system takes leaves a trail that can be read, replayed and audited after the fact.
- 04
Built to be undone
Rollback, containment and audit are designed in before scale — not bolted on after an incident.
- 05
One standard, every domain
Cyber, biosciences, intelligence and automation are built to the same engineering discipline, end to end.
Disclosure
What we share, and when.
Our research is proprietary and unpublished. That is a deliberate policy: detail is shared in steps, as an engagement takes shape.
XS1 does not publish its team, partners or research. Qualified partners receive more detail after an initial conversation.
Less detail
More detail
Step 01
Public site
Our divisions, the capabilities they draw on, and the dated status of Project North Star.
Step 02
Initial request
You describe the problem through Work with XS1 or Contact. Nothing confidential is needed yet.
Step 03
Conversation
A first conversation to scope the work and whether XS1 is the right fit.
Step 04
Qualification
We confirm the fit in both directions. Terms are agreed privately before sensitive details change hands.
Step 05
Partner briefing
Qualified partners are briefed on the people, research and approach relevant to their work.
Divisions
Four divisions, each with its own domain.
Each division runs its own research programs and contracted work, to the shared standard described above.
- CyberXS1 CyberHome of Project North StarSecure the environment.Defensive systems, secure AI, adversarial research and cyber operations.
- BiosciencesXS1 BiosciencesFrom sequence to function.Frontier AI for biology and the genome: genomic and protein language models, models for CRISPR guide RNA design, single-cell models and research agents that support biological and genetic research.
- IntelligenceXS1 IntelligenceOpen sources, sourced judgments.AI models and capabilities for open-source intelligence: collection and verification, entities and networks, markets intelligence and blockchain intelligence, delivered as sourced, confidence-rated assessments.
- AutomationXS1 AutomationAct on the environment.Research and engineering of agent systems: orchestration, integrations, private infrastructure and autonomous operations within limits a named person approves.
Open to contracting
Have a research problem, or a system that needs building?
XS1 takes on contracted research and engineering, and research partnerships — in any division or across several. Tell us what you are working on; the first conversation is about scoping the problem.