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Europe’s key to an AI-driven battlefield will take 10 years to build, Airbus’ CEO has said. Chief Executive Guillaume Faury, who has urged the continent to increase defense cooperation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, told CNBC that protocols for exchanging data between countries and teams on the battlefield “remain quite limited.” The aircraft manufacturer and defense company is part of an effort to share information between European countries through what Foley called a “warfighting cloud,” making it easier to share data between “satellites, tankers, fighter jets, helicopters, and objects on the ground” for security purposes. The project is part of the Future Combat System, which also aims to develop new fighter aircraft and remote aircraft carriers for air combat support. “This is a key enabler of the future digital battlefield that we’re going to see in future conflicts,” Foley told CNBC’s Charlotte Reid during a fireside chat at the Adopt AI conference in Paris this week. But he added that it will take years to get the combat cloud up and running. “We are already connecting objects digitally today. There are protocols for exchanging data between different objects, but those protocols are very limited and not like a network that everyone can connect to, like the cloud,” he added. “So it’s going to take a decade, maybe a decade and a half, to get to the level that we’re aiming for. But there are incremental ways to connect objects that are already being applied,” Foley said. “We need to develop players on a large scale in Europe,” he added. “If we develop players on a large scale, we can compete with the Americans and the Chinese.” Foley has been vocal about his dissatisfaction with Russia’s defense efforts since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In October, Airbus signed a memorandum of understanding with Italy’s Leonardo and France’s Thales to combine space projects, establishing a European leadership rivaling the likes of Elon Musk’s Starlink. Satellites support today’s critical infrastructure, including communications, science, and national security. President Leonardo is expected to unveil plans on Thursday for an AI-powered missile shield called the “Michelangelo Dome” that will connect various equipment and platforms. Mr. Foley said he hoped the Airbus three-way partnership would “enable us to accelerate innovation and get the right level of investment for Europe, Europe and the rest of the world.”
