Saab announced on 31 August 2023 that it has acquired UK-based BlueBear Systems Group, which will retain its own branding but be located within Saab’s surveillance business.
The acquisition of all shares in BlueBear is part of Saab’s continued international growth journey across key markets, which include the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and Germany. A leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled autonomous swarm systems for complex defence and security applications, BlueBear employs 65 employees at its site outside Bedford, England, and had a turnover of GBP 8 M (EUR 9.35 M) in 2022. However, speaking to journalists including ESD on 31 August, BlueBear CEO Dr Yoge Patel said she envisaged the company soon growing to more than 100 staff.
“The combination of Saab’s world-leading products, services and solutions, and BlueBear’s experience as an agile integrator of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems, will be a powerful driver of Saab’s future capabilities,” the two companies stated in a press release. “BlueBear will contribute to Saab’s existing activities worldwide and Saab will benefit from BlueBear’s expertise in autonomy and swarming, as well as command-and-control systems.
As emerging and disruptive technologies such as AI, machine learning and autonomous systems have the potential to reshape entire industries, Saab has stated that it is embracing a proactive strategy of selected acquisitions, with the purchase of BlueBear, the price of which was not disclosed, being a key part of this.
“By acquisitions and strategic partnerships with companies that specialise in new technologies, Saab’s capabilities are enhanced, thereby increasing the comprehensive solutions offered for a wider range of defence needs,” the company stated. “AI will enable Saab to further improve system capabilities and increase efficiency across our world-leading product portfolio.”
Micael Johansson, President and CEO of Saab, was quoted as saying, “This acquisition is another step in support of our international growth strategy as we seek to ensure Saab is well positioned in key markets and to sustain our competitive advantage. BlueBear, as a world-leading provider of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems for complex defence and security applications, is a good fit with our approach of leveraging emerging technologies in the fields of autonomous systems and AI.”
“For BlueBear this is an important step in our journey as we now move forward as part of Saab,” said Patel. “We see many enhanced opportunities around naval, air and land autonomy, payload integration, next-generation command and control, AI-enabled defence clouds as well as next-generation platforms.”
Asked by ESD where the near-term prospects for business were for BlueBear’s capabilities as part of Saab, Dean Rosenfield, Group Managing Director of Saab UK, replied, “We do see near-term opportunities in terms of the [Saab] 9LV combat management system and the ability to actually integrate that application that Blue Bear produces directly into a combat management system. I think that’ll be the first one, which then enhances the existing customers we already have in terms of new capabilities or functionalities.
“If you look from a Saab UK perspective, what really encourages myself and my management team here in the UK is what Blue Bear produces in terms of rapid concept development and their ability to interpret the customer requirement to work very, very closely with them,” Rosenfield added. “That’s really about us piggybacking with BlueBear locally to see how we can develop together and work together in the local market. But more importantly, really, it’s about, as we do that, we also have an integration task working in parallel to look at existing capabilities from BlueBear and how we get them through our market channels across the globe.
“Most tenders that we go through, in terms of command and control, we’ll be evaluating and saying, ‘Will Blue Bear’s autonomous or swarming AI give us an advantage in terms of new functionality, of which we haven’t had previously?’.”
Meanwhile, Rosenfield said that a lot of lessons learned in autonomy can be applied to the underwater domain and noted that he sees a great opportunity for business in relation to the Anglo-US-Australian AUKUS programme – especially with regard to AUKUS Pillar Two, which focuses on jointly developing a range of advanced capabilities, sharing technology and increasing interoperability between the three countries’ armed forces.
In terms of how the two companies came together, Rosenfield pointed out that Saab was working together with BlueBear on certain projects well before the company was seen as an acquisition opportunity, while Patel added that she had been tracking Saab for several years and was ultimately “attracted by Saab’s engineering excellence”.
Peter Felstead
