Inside the doomsday bunker with robot staff for the megarich

As natural disasters escalate, the world’s elite are building luxury bunkers to keep themselves safe. 

A $485 million underground bunker is set to launch in mid-2026 to protect the world’s wealthiest people from natural disasters and civil unrest. 

The bunker is the brainchild of Safe (Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments), a US-based design company that describes itself as “a global leader in delivering state-of-the-art protective systems”. 

The bunker is called Aerie, named after the nests of eagles and other birds of prey. 

It’s designed to be an underground community of ultra-safe rooms for club members to use when disaster strikes away from home. 

“We created Aerie to help vulnerable clients when they leave their fortified homes or yachts,” Safe founder Al Corbi tells Forbes. 

Aerie will consist of luxury bedrooms, gourmet dining facilities, lavish swimming pools, and medical suites powered by AI. 

Digital walls will project images of cityscapes or clifftops, giving residents the illusion they are living high in the air. 

Members can purchase a bunker in Aerie for a cool $US20 million ($AU32 million). Those that buy in will have access to the shared facilities. 

“The whole reason that Aerie came to be is that after building multimillion-dollar sanctuaries for our clients on their estates and superyachts, they still travelled away from their protected homes to locations with a lower level of protection,” Corbi says. 

“When something terrible happens, they can use one of the bunkers and facilities in the city they find themselves in.” 

Safe claims that the bunkers will be nuclear-proof and blast-resistant in the case of war. 

The company markets pirate-proof yachts, bioterror defense shelters, natural disaster shelters, and active shooter defense shelters, using grim AI-generated images of machine guns and disaster zones. 

The first Aerie shelter will launch near Washington DC in 2026, and will cost $US300 million ($AU485 million) to build. 

In Australia, underground bunkers have seen a surge in recent years as people seek to protect themselves from extreme bushfires. 

After the Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020, Australian bunker manufacturer Wildfire Safety Bunkers saw a wave of interest in their products. 

The company describes their bunkers as a “last option” for residents of high-risk bushfire zones who are left stranded on their properties during an active fire. 

It’s one of just a handful of companies that are fully accredited by the Victorian Building Regulations Advisory Committee for fire standards. 

But the NSW Rural Fire Service has previously warned Australians that bunkers are not a risk-free solution. 

“Inadequately designed, badly located and poorly maintained private bushfire shelters are extremely dangerous,” the NSW Rural Fire Service stated. 

Experts have warned that low-income communities are disproportionately affected by extreme natural disasters. In Los Angeles, where wildfires have destroyed over 10,000 buildings, low-income fire victims have been left with no recourse after the costs of home insurance soared to $US18,000 – more than many could afford.