{"id":234367,"date":"2026-01-12T14:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/234367\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T14:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:43:11","slug":"dassault-aviation-invests-in-french-defence-ai-unicorn-harmattan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/234367\/","title":{"rendered":"Dassault Aviation invests in French defence AI unicorn Harmattan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">PARIS, Jan 12 &#8211; French aerospace group Dassault Aviation is leading a $200 million funding round in startup Harmattan AI as the defence sector \u200braces to leverage <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/ai\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:artificial intelligence;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">artificial intelligence<\/a> amid intensifying geopolitical competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The partnership will support \u200cthe development of AI capabilities in Dassault Aviation&#8217;s future air combat systems, particularly for the control of unmanned \u200caerial systems, or drones, the companies said on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Paris-based Harmattan AI was created last year to produce autonomous defence systems, including AI-enabled platforms, strike drones and surveillance drones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">DEAL IS &#8216;EXCELLENT NEWS&#8217; SAYS FRANCE&#8217;S MACRON<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Harmattan said in a post on LinkedIn that the Series B \u2060funding round valued it at $1.4 \u200cbillion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">&#8220;This is excellent news for our strategic autonomy, for the technological superiority of our military in the area of AI-enabled defence \u200ddrones as well as for our economy,&#8221; French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Drone technology has evolved rapidly in recent years, particularly due to their extensive use by \u200bboth sides in the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The shift towards the use of AI-augmented \u200csystems has become a crucial front in defence technology as companies rush to bolster Europe&#8217;s armed forces in the face of the threat from Russia and the need for more autonomy from the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Dassault is working on a new version of its Rafale fighter jet, the F5, expected in 2030, as well as a \u2060combat drone under the &#8220;unmanned combat air system&#8221; program, \u200bwhich is intended to fly with the Rafale \u200bF5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Artificial intelligence is also increasingly central for the competitiveness of defence companies. AI tools are being developed to support pilots&#8217; handling of \u200dhigh volumes of information \u2060and to help prioritise threats, as well as to equip autonomous drones flying alongside fighter jets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Dassault signed an agreement in June with France&#8217;s agency for \u2060AI in defence, AMIAD, to research air combat use cases and in November announced a strategic \u200cpartnership with French group Thales to develop sovereign AI for air combat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">(Writing \u200cby Florence Loeve; Editing by Joe Bavier)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS, Jan 12 &#8211; French aerospace group Dassault Aviation is leading a $200 million funding round in startup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,127204,343,344,20337,127203,85,46,125,127202],"class_list":{"0":"post-234367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-air-combat","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-dassault-aviation","13":"tag-harmattan","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-unmanned-aerial-systems"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}