Europe Aims for AI Independence in Defense with Helsing’s Breakthrough

Can Europe reduce its technological and military dependence on the United States through artificial intelligence (AI)? Can the imperative to defend the Old Continent and its values bring back talent who have gone to work for tech giants?

Helsing, a start-up specializing in AI applied to defense, is betting on a positive answer. Founded in 2021, the German-French-British company has managed to recruit leading executives from Meta, Palantir, Google, and Amazon, including several French nationals, to form a European team based in three countries.

The young company has achieved several successes in recent weeks, which have earned it strong media attention, but also some skeptical comments from arms specialists. In mid-June, Helsing concluded a record funding round: thanks to a massive investment of 600 million euros from Daniel Ek, the Swedish co-founder of Spotify, it became the most highly valued start-up in Germany, at 12 billion euros. In late May and early June, it successfully tested Centaur, its autonomous fighter jet piloting program, developed in six months, for the first time. Installed on a Gripen E aircraft from the Swedish company Saab, the software took over piloting and performed several operations autonomously over the Baltic Sea, with a pilot only serving as a supervisor.

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