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Both GPS and ARPANET, the germ of what would later be Internetwere born within the United States Department of Defense. From radar, which was developed during the 1930s and perfected during World War II, advances later emerged such as the air traffic control system or the microwave. There was a time when military technology was a source of inventions for the civilian sphere. With AI, technical advances begin to occur in the opposite direction: from the civil to the military. They are companies that we all know – Google, OpenAI or Anthropic – that are developing the most sophisticated models in the world and defense organizations are waiting. For the European Union, this trend coincides with an acute crisis in the field of defense. The war in Ukraine has undermined the foundations of political life in Brussels, while presenting Russia as a growing threat. Added to this is the Trump Administration’s willingness to stop security aid to European countries. A breeding ground that has driven the need to rearm. In March, the European Commission announced the ReArm Europe initiative o Readiness 2030. The objective is to significantly increase the EU’s defense capabilities. This is a plan that wants to mobilize nearly 800,000 million eurosincluding 150,000 million in loans for military investments. State governments are expected to push for the modernization of their armies, but the mobilization of private capital is also sought. The increase in security spending is also reflected in the Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034)presented in summer. This budget, which defines at a financial level the EU’s priorities for the coming years, provides for an allocation of 131,000 million euros to support investment in the areas of defense, security and space. Without knowing how the distribution is, the funds are five times higher than those of the previous period (2021-2027). (Pablo Bejarano) These efforts of the EU to recover the lost ground in defense could benefit from the technological race that is currently being experienced. Above all, advances in AI, called to reconvert armies and forms of deterrence that countries exhibit today. In one of the round tables at the Web Summit, held in Lisbon last November and which acts as a meeting point for startups from around the world, several experts addressed this topic. Under the title ‘From code to combat: Why AI defense tech is exploiting‘, participants discussed the rise of AI in defense. “What is changing the technological landscape is the speed of innovation,” commented Josh Araujo, CEO of the startup Forterra, in reference to the accelerated pace of technological evolution. “And in Europe, what happens with defense budgets is that it is no longer interesting to buy old things. You can take a system, man it with humans and put armor on it, so we are talking about refined and expensive systems that take decades to design. Or you can deploy autonomous systems low cost that put humans out of danger and allow more firepower and more deterrence capacity to be projected at a much lower cost.” The boost of startups and private capital Forterra is an American company dedicated to developing autonomous ground systems for the field of defense and industrial logistics. Araujo is used to dealing with both military and civilian actors and highlights the importance of deterrence: “The point is that for Europe and our allies, it costs aggressors much more to carry out an aggressive action. The key here is to deploy as much capacity as quickly as possible at the lowest possible cost.” To make this deployment at low cost, AI will be key. a report of the think tank RAND recommends estimates that advances in autonomy and robotics will allow this type of technology be used en masse. “AI represents a great opportunity. If we realize what we generate today on the battlefield, with swarms of drones, autonomous ground vehicles and different mission systems, we see that there are enormous amounts of data,” says Araujo. “Traditionally you had to have a lot of people staring at their computer screens to analyze and absorb the information. But AI offers us the possibility of taking this information, giving it meaning and putting it in context so that a human can make decisions based on that information,” he adds. Forterra’s CEO adds that this change has occurred over the last three or four years. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit/Commons) One of the most direct use cases of AI has to do with improving the surveillance capacity of the terrain, through the analysis of mass images. But the technology has also been used in the search and identification of targets or to guide drones towards the target without the intervention of an operator. Likewise, in Ukraine has been rehearsed vehicle deployment terrestrial autonomouswhile the launch of swarms of drones that act on missions in a controlled manner is proposed. All are formulas for increasing war capabilities at low cost, compared to the means that have been used to date. There is still a lot to refine, yes. In an informal conversation, a director of a company in the defense sector in Spain admitted that generative AI is still in the exploration phase and that for now it does not have clear uses in the military field. This does not prevent a flood of technology startups from directing their efforts towards the defense sector. James Cross, co-head of private investment at the firm Franklin Templetonwas the other participant in the Web Summit round table and painted a context full of economic incentives: “I have been investing in defense since the late 90s, but things have changed a lot in the last ten years. Before, no venture capital firm would have invested in a defense-oriented company and today, apart from AI, defense is probably the hottest sector.” Cross seasoned this vision with two notes: governments now they have gotten involvedsomething that has not happened for a long time, and more and more money is going to startups instead of traditional arms contractors. In the first half … Read more