Airbus to Onboard Artifical Intelligence in French Armed Forces' Information Systems

The French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) has awarded Airbus Defence and Space a framework contract worth up to €50 million for the integration of artificial intelligence components into the weapons, information, communication and cybersecurity systems used by the French armed forces.

The contract covers information systems delivered by Airbus Defence and Space and Airbus Helicopters. Within this framework, Airbus and the DGA are working in collaboration with the Ministerial Agency for Defence AI (AMIAD), created in May 2024 to enable France to master these technologies and avoid dependence on other nations. It is part of the ministerial strategy on artificial intelligence for defence, which aims to address the challenge of sovereignty in this field and develop the use of AI for military operations.

The first stage of this contract will consist of increasing the capabilities of Spationav, the French maritime surveillance system with AI elements that will enable the automated merging of surveillance data from satellite systems and Spationav.

Many other potential uses are being or will be explored, particularly in the fields of intelligence, cybersecurity and connectivity, such as real-time assistance in the management and optimisation of military telecommunications networks.

With the proliferation of sensors (satellites, radars, drones, smartphones, social networks) generating massive amounts of data, only AI can process it efficiently and quickly. The aim is to save humans time in activities they already carry out, as well as to perform tasks that are impossible for humans to complete, given the urgency of the situation or the excessive volume of data to be processed. The other major challenge associated with AI is the ability to store, archive and structure all the data that feeds it using appropriate infrastructure.