German Army adds AI defenses

Lt. Gen. Christian Freuding, who took over as German Army chief in October 2025, told Reuters that the army will train AI tools on battlefield data — including lessons from Ukraine — to recommend countermeasures based on how adversaries acted in past similar situations. (defensenews.com)) Freuding said tasks that today require “hundreds of personnel and days” could be sped up by algorithms that fuse imagery and sensor feeds, and he proposed using both Ukrainian combat data and German exercise data when training those analytical models. (defensenews.com)) He stressed AI would be an advisory, human‑in‑the‑loop capability rather than an autonomous killer system, while acknowledging that no specific product has yet been selected and that data sovereignty and security remain constraints. (defensenews.com)) Freuding pointed to U.S. practice as a benchmark, noting the U.S. Army is fielding the Maven system from Palantir to process imagery and video for faster situational awareness. (defensenews.com)) Concrete procurement work is already under way: the Federal Office for Bundeswehr Equipment (BAAINBw) commissioned HENSOLDT on May 15, 2025 to upgrade the ASUL counter‑UAS system with AI‑driven sensor fusion and HENSOLDT’s Elysion Mission Core decision‑support engine. (grosswald.org)) That industrial push sits alongside a political package to ramp up capabilities — Reuters reporting shows Berlin plans major defence spending increases through 2029 and is prioritising funding for AI and defence start‑ups as part of modernisation. (theoutpost.ai)) At the programme level, the Bundeswehr’s Uranos AI initiative is in late tender phases, leaving open whether Germany will opt for a European‑developed system or an American solution to meet NATO interoperability and sovereignty requirements. (janes.com))