Europe’s defence-AI champion Helsing is using Rakuten to break into Japan’s arms market
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 broker the sale of its unmanned systems to Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Forces.
At the centre of the effort is the HX-2, a compact AI-guided strike drone that Japan’s military is putting through field trials due to run until the end of September.
Alongside the drone, Helsing sells AI software for battlefield analysis, underwater surveillance and combat aircraft, the software-first arsenal that has made it one of Europe’s most valuable tech firms and a poster child for the continent’s rearmament.
The conglomerate is positioning itself as a broker that can walk foreign defence startups through Japan’s notoriously opaque procurement system, and it has done this before, having helped the Ukrainian drone-software...
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