The German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) has selected the HIS consortium, comprising Helsing, IBM Deutschland and Rohde & Schwarz’s Schönhofer Sales and Engineering (SSE), to provide the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for the Système de combat aérien du futur (SCAF), the companies announced on 30 August 2023.
BAAINBw signed the contract for provision of the SCAF AI backbone on 7 August.
SCAF is a multinational programme involving France, Germany and Spain to develop a next-generation combat air system. Part of SCAF is the Next Generation Weapon System (NGWS), which will develop a sixth-generation fighter aircraft and associated unmanned aerial systems. National initiatives in Germany will run in parallel to then SCAF effort. Now that the HIS consortium has been awarded the contract, these initiatives can proceed through the NGWS National Research and Technology (R&T) project.
“The use of AI will be critical to the air superiority of SCAF,” the companies stated in a press release. “AI applications are decisive for mission precision, speed, and effectiveness. AI transforms evaluating sensor data, planning missions, and deploying effectors.”
To allow this key capability to be developed and deployed quickly, Germany has opted to create a cross-functional platform as a development environment for all partners and pillars of SCAF.
“AI plays a key role in conflicts with peer competitor adversaries,” Stephanie Lingemann, programme director at Helsing, was quoted as saying. “The AI backbone is the first step toward giving the air force cross-functional capabilities with AI; the [SCAF] programme is making progress, but this sort of infrastructure is crucial for every platform.”
“SSE draws on many years of excellent co-operation with the German armed forces on innovation topics, and we look forward to driving the development of AI technologies in Germany,” said the company’s CEO, Dr Martin Schönhofer. “As a trailblazer for national research and technology projects for NGWS and [SCAF], the HIS consortium offers the right platform for agile AI development.”
In addition, Sandra Pfetzing-Huber, associate partner for defence and intelligence at IBM Consulting, stated, “In order to develop and operate AI applications, a powerful and scalable IT infrastructure is required that is also secure. The Secure Cloud (VS-Cloud) from IBM and its partners Secunet and RedHat offers the scalability, flexibility, reliability and security to quickly and easily develop, operate and secure AI applications.”
The HIS consortium’s AI backbone will allow high-performance AI to be developed for military applications, including complex industry collaboration, and deployment to the German armed forces. Each of the consortium partners has a specific strength to contribute. Helsing is a leader in defence AI products, as well as the development and deployment of edge AI for military platforms. SSE, as a longstanding partner to the German armed forces, brings to the consortium its expertise in real-time situational awareness, analytics, AI and management of complex data and data formats. IBM complements the team with its many years of expertise in the military sector and provides cloud technologies for the use of AI in security-related areas.
Peter Felstead
