Europe’s tech leaders join forces for sovereign control of drone swarms

10 September 2025 - London- Helsing and Systematic are today announcing a partnership to provide Europe with sovereign AI-powered swarm capabilities integrated with existing C2 systems and processes to revolutionise the recce-strike complex. The agreement has been signed at Europe’s largest defence exhibition, DSEI in London, and is the latest innovative partnership between European defence tech companies developing sovereign capabilities in Europe, for Europe. 

By combining their expertise, the two companies are strengthening the continent’s digital defence industrial base, providing the capability and capacity required for quicker decisions, state-of-the-art targeting, and precision mass strike capabilities. This will allow military leaders to build up their capacity in this area and adopt lessons from Ukraine. 

The partnership will integrate Helsing’s AI-powered defence tech platforms with the Systematic SitaWare suite of C4ISR currently used by more than 50 nations. This will allow customers to be instantly ‘drone ready’ and open the pathway to further scale the deployment of autonomous sensors and effectors as drone swarms.

The technology will enable the faster exchange of data between drones, such as ISR platforms and the Helsing HX-2 strike drone, which is deployed in Ukraine. SitaWare users can then deliver mission critical tasks at unprecedented speed and scale, such as developing target lists, creating plans and orders, tasking strike assets, deconflicting airspace to ensure safe operations, and delivering fused friendly and enemy force pictures. 

Data gathered from the uncrewed systems will support tasks ranging from target nomination through to battle damage assessment. When operated in conjunction with the strike capabilities in the HX-2 system, commanders will have a comprehensive and seamless end-to-end F3EAD capability (find, fix, finish, exploit, analyse, disseminate). 

Helsing’s Co-founder and Co-CEO, Gundbert Scherf, says: “This partnership brings together two entrepreneurial and sovereign European technology companies: Systematic, the leader in interoperable battle management systems, and Helsing, at the forefront of AI-enabled reconnaissance and strike. We share a mission and an ambition — to intelligently network our forces at the speed the threat situation demands. What wins wars is not individual systems, but the ability to connect them and to iterate at the speed of relevance. Together, we will deliver exactly that for Europe’s defence.” 

Systematic’s Chairman and Founder, Michael Holm, says: “Systematic has always been at the forefront of data delivery for military operations, with Helsing emerging as one of the major European players in AI and new technologies. As the AI age is increasing how we can use data, partnerships such as this help our users to get the most out of their systems, and the other platforms that support them. As Europe continues to invest in its own defence technological and industrial base, we are helping to improve European sovereignty, while also providing our allies and partners with advanced data solutions.” 

Editors Notes: 

Helsing was founded in 2021 to provide “Artificial Intelligence to protect our democracies”, with the conviction that advanced technologies must be urgently moved from experimentation to operations, deterring wider conflict for a strong Europe. Helsing works closely with technicians across the defence industry and tacticians from militaries throughout Europe. Together, we develop systems that leverage AI and autonomy to generate autonomous mass that is affordable, scalable and sovereign. 

Systematic’s SitaWare suite is now in use with over 50 military forces around the world, including 19 in Europe, and is also NATO’s land forces command-and-control platform. SitaWare allows users to develop a common operating picture (COP); discover, consume, and disseminate intelligence; and create and distribute plans and orders across all echelons. Systematic’s intelligence and decision support tool, SitaWare Insight, also allows the collection, collation, and processing of intelligence data using AI to uncover insights and monitor areas of interest.