Helsing defence company: Scale and innovation of drone production in Ukraine are impressive
Ukraine has great potential in the field of drone production, and the scale and innovation are impressive.
This was stated by Gundbert Scherf, co-founder and co-CEO of Helsing, a tech company in the security and defence sector, in a comment to Ukrinform's correspondent.
“We saw when we went over, and I spent a lot of time there, we saw that Ukraine was very capable in getting this drone production very high and also actually really quickly iterating the specific design. Focused more on FPVs, but I think it's now extending also to other longer range systems,” Scherf commented on drone production in Ukraine.
According to him, the scale and innovation embodied in Ukraine by hundreds of initiatives in the private sector are simply impressive.
"But I think it's amazing to see how scaled this is and how innovative. And especially if you know that Ukraine doesn't have two state-owned companies who produce all of that, but are actually doing this through hundreds of private sector initiatives and are somehow managing to use this sort of more diverse ecosystem," Scherf noted.
He also expressed hope that if Helsing manages to deploy thousands of its HX-2 medium-range loitering munitions in Ukraine, which demonstrate resistance to electronic warfare thanks to the artificial intelligence used in them, this will impact on the situation on the battlefield.
"It's a great impact. But I think when we deploy thousands of these systems, really at the same scale at last, and hopefully at that level, you get the message that this matters
," added the co-founder of a defense startup in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and software for defense technologies, which has raised about €1.3 billion in investments over four years.
During a media day in Munich organized by Helsing, a Ukrinform correspondent also asked Helsing's management how they assess their partnership with Ukraine and the prospects for its development.
"So, yes, we very much believe in Ukraine being a very long-term commitment for us. This is not something we do to once demonstrate a project, and then we pull back and focus on elsewhere," Scherf replied.
According to him, Helsing has “long-term commitments” to Ukraine.
"This has been core to our company. It is part of our company. We have a lot of people there. We have a huge amount of people that have been through Ukraine. And so we think about this as a long-term partnership," Scherf emphasized.
For more details, read the article on combat AI from Europe on the Ukrinform website.
As reported by Ukrinform, Helsing has already delivered 1,950 AI-equipped HF-1 loitering munitions to Ukraine, created in cooperation with a Ukrainian manufacturer, and is currently testing the HX-2 loitering munition with improved characteristics, which is now entirely manufactured domestically.
Photo: Helsing