A At a time when international tensions are at their highest since the Cold War, when war is back on European soil and asymmetric conflicts are multiplying, AI has become a major defense issue. Image analysis is a striking example, whether for remote surveillance by satellites, missile guidance or assistance in identifying targets. The French start-up Preligens was a pioneer in this area with a detailed analysis of the forces present during the Russian “war games” (Zapad) in 2021.
The defense sector also benefits from recent advances in generative AI for the automatic translation and tracking of communications and, for its new equipment, from the latest advances in decision-making support, logistics or robotics. The Future Combat Air System (FCAS) developed by Germany, Spain and France to replace the Rafale is no longer a simple combat aircraft but a complex system integrating drones, connected to the rest of the fleet and ready to benefit from these advances.
The Russo-Ukrainian war saw the first massive use in a high-intensity conflict of “expendable” drones whose cost (a few thousand euros) has nothing to do with that of real (small) combat aircraft such as the Predator or Reaper, popularized by Hollywood (from ten – 8.96 million euros – to twenty million dollars per unit). Their use is set to multiply, with in parallel improvements thanks to AI of their coordination, navigation, aiming, etc. capacities.
Human decision maker
The United States was very early on able to exploit the dual use of innovative technologies to “make profitable” in part the heavy investments necessary for their development. DARPA, the famous research agency of the American Department of Defense, has thus financed since the end of the 1950s both fundamental scientific advances, which benefit civil society and its industrial fabric, and more targeted research on defense, such as the development of stealth aircraft, the civil and military aspects mutually enriching each other. DARPA has also invested in alone has invested more than two billion dollars in AI since 2018 (“AI Next Campaign”). Europe is not there yet, with, as is often deplored, a new risk of falling behind, even if the French finance law devotes 130 million euros to defense AI in 2024 and it is planned to double this annual budget by 2030.
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