A project of Honeywell International Inc. and Pratt & Whitney, ATEC was formed to compete for a government contract to create a 3,000 shaft horsepower engine to replace the existing 2,000 shaft horsepower T700 engine powering the U.S. Army's Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters.

Honeywell International Inc. and United Technologies Corporation subsidiary Pratt & Whitney created the Advanced Turbine Engine Company in 2006.

[3] At the 2007 Paris Air Show, the fifty-fifty joint venture[4] said it would participate in the U.S. Army's Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE) program.

[5] In May 2008, the Army awarded a $108 million contract to ATEC for the science and technology initiative to replace the current T700 engine.

[8] Originally, Wheeler said four or five management and business development workers would work out of the new office, in addition to visiting engineers and logistics professionals.