France and Germany spent the summer agreeing that Europe needs its own battlefield AI. They have not agreed on whose it should be. Internal German government notes seen by Politico Europe show Berlin is wary of Arcadia, the French-built Palantir rival….
In late August the US Army fired a high-energy laser at three drones near the Mexican border. All three came down. A week later the Army signed the contract to buy the production version. AeroVironment announced on Wednesday that it has won a $464.8m a…
Castelion has raised $1bn at a $13bn valuation. Three SpaceX executives founded the company in 2022 to build missiles. Its first product is Blackbeard, a hypersonic strike weapon designed for quantity rather than craft. The structure repays a close rea…
The White House has published a new National Security Science and Technology strategy. It names 15 critical technology areas the United States intends to lead. Artificial intelligence and autonomy is one of them, with 12 subfields listed underneath. Op…
A defence software start-up that most of Silicon Valley had never heard of a year ago is suddenly flush with cash, and the reason says a great deal about where the Pentagon is steering the technology industry. Smack Technologies, an Austin-based firm b…
Terra Industries has added $18mn to close a $52mn seed round and will open its first office outside Africa in London, while keeping manufacturing in Ghana and Nigeria. The Nigerian company was founded in 2024 and says it is on track for more than $100m…
Helsing, the Munich startup that has become Europe’s best-funded defence-AI company, is pushing into Asia, and it has found an unlikely guide. The German firm has enlisted Japan’s Rakuten, a name better known for e-commerce and mobile phones, to help b…
Donald Trump signed the proclamation on 13 August. It carries the title Adjusting Imports of Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Unmanned Aircraft Systems Components into the United States. It rests on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the nati…
Government software is usually bought by asking several companies to bid. A department writes down what it needs, suppliers compete, and the file records why the winner won. A memo drafted inside the US Defense Department on 4 August did something diff…
Nick Blair, a son of former UK prime minister Tony Blair, is trying to raise around $200m for a defence-tech startup that has not yet launched, reported by the Financial Times and described as ongoing and unconfirmed. The company, London-based Pyra, i…