Harmattan AI: How European Startups Are Scaling Defence AI

The company emphasizes that its defense systems integrate AI, sensing, and mission intelligence to deliver “a unified operational capability.” Credit: Harmattan AI

Harmattan AI and Tekever have secured contracts with the UK Ministry of Defence, highlighting how AI-driven military operations are accelerating amid ongoing debate

Harmattan AI is a French firm focused on embedding autonomy across its defense systems.

In June, the scaling startup announced the establishment of a manufacturing facility in the Paris region, capable of producing 10,000 units per month to meet the growing demand for autonomous systems.

The company states that it embeds autonomy into its systems to enable "coordinated action and resilient execution in real-time." Harmattan AI has been awarded multiple Programmes of Record by the French and UK Ministries of Defence for its autonomous systems portfolio.

AI is poised to reshape combat in various ways and has already been deployed in the war in Ukraine. The European Commission has previously noted that the future battlefield relies as much on algorithms and compute power as it does on traditional arms.

Harmattan AI is committed to applying its technological excellence to adapt even faster

Mouad M'Ghari, CEO and Co-Founder of Harmattan AI

Scaling in Europe

Earlier this year, Harmattan AI announced the renewal of a contract with the French Ministry of the Armed Forces for its Sonora system and signed a major strategic partnership with the Royal Armed Forces of the Kingdom of Morocco.

Mouad M'Ghari, CEO and Co-Founder of Harmattan AI, stated earlier this year: “Harmattan AI is becoming a long-term partner of the nations that entrust us with critical defence capabilities, and we are very proud to build that relationship of trust.

Mouad M'Ghari, CEO of Harmattan AI. Credit: Mouad M'Ghari/LinkedIn

“This demonstrates Harmattan AI’s ability to meet the needs of allied nations: developing attritable, scalable and autonomous defence systems at speed, while remaining agile and responsive to the needs of real-world operators. In a world where warfare is changing rapidly, Harmattan AI is committed to applying its technological excellence to adapt even faster.”

UK Government deal

The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently disclosed that more than 1,025 small drones are being delivered as part of a £16m (US$21m) agreement with three UK-based small and medium-sized enterprises.

This includes 110 SONORA drones from a partnership between Brigantes Consulting, a military equipment specialist based in Exeter, UK, and Harmattan AI.

The company’s Sonora drone system is a small unmanned aerial system designed for training and operator familiarisation. The firm clarifies that it builds defence systems that fuse AI, sensing and mission intelligence into “a unified operational capability”.

Designed for repeatable use, it makes unit-level training scalable, and the MoD states that it "prepares future operators to confidently manage UAS [unmanned aerial systems] in operational environments".

Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard MP, says: "This is defence procurement that backs British industry, creates skilled jobs and keeps our Armed Forces ahead of our adversaries."

Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry. Credit: Luke Pollard MP

The MoD also announced that a new contract, worth up to £400m (US$536m), was awarded to Tekever, based in Lisbon, Portugal, to bring its AR5 drone, a long-endurance AI-enabled surveillance drone, into service. The drones will be built at a new Tekever factory in Swindon, and the MoD noted that they “have already been used by Ukraine against Russia”.

A recent article from The Financial Times noted that AI technology has transformed how the war in Ukraine is fought. At the start of the conflict, it could take 20 minutes to identify a target and launch a strike, it said. Now that process can take less than two minutes and sometimes just seconds.

This is defence procurement that backs British industry, creates skilled jobs and keeps our Armed Forces ahead of our adversaries

Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard MP

Key facts

• Harmattan AI is a French defence startup building autonomous systems
• Its Paris facility can produce ten thousand units each month
• Dassault Aviation led its US$200m funding round
• The company signed major military partnerships with France and Morocco

Why AI in defence matters

While Harmattan AI’s Sonora is used for training and operator familiarisation, AI remains controversial in defence, with concerns often cited by researchers regarding autonomous systems making lethal decisions, particularly due to the risk of AI hallucinations and diminished human responsibility in warfare.

Some firms have pushed back against certain aspects of government integration of AI in defence. Anthropic was previously labelled a supply chain risk by the US Government during a dispute over autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.

A recent FT article notes that the Saker Scout AI-enabled drone, powered by ML and made by Twist Robotics, which is being used on the battlefield in Ukraine, has a crucial limitation: while the machine can distinguish a tank from a truck, or infantry from artillery – it cannot identify whether the target is Ukrainian or Russian. The article notes the drone can “attack without waiting for another human command” after its initial deployment, and is only used in some circumstances.

Key partners

Dassault Aviationannounced a strategic partnership with Harmattan AI to accelerate the integration of controlled autonomy and AI technologies into combat aviation systems.

As part of this collaboration, Dassault Aviation led Harmattan AI’s US$200m Series B funding round announced in January.