Airbus’ CEO has said it will take a decade to build Europe’s key to an AI-powered battlefield. CEO Guillaume Fourie, who has urged the continent to cooperate more on defense since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, told CNBC that protocols for exchanging data between countries and teams on the battlefield are still “still limited.” The planemaker and the defense company are part of an effort to improve information sharing between European countries through what Fourie calls a “combat cloud” to better share data between “satellites, tankers, fighter jets, helicopters and things on the ground” for security purposes. The project is part of the Future Combat System, which also aims to develop new fighter jets, remote carriers for aerial combat support. “It’s a key enabler of the future digital warfare arena that’s going to happen in the future when the confrontation happens,” Fourey told CNBC’s Charlotte Reed in a fireside chat at the Adopt AI conference in Paris this week. But, he added, it would take years to advance the battle cloud. “We’re already connecting objects digitally today. There are protocols to exchange data between different objects, but those protocols are quite limited, and it’s not like a network where everyone can connect like a cloud,” he added. “So, it’s going to take a decade, maybe a decade and a half, before we’re at the level we want to be. But there are growing ways to connect objects that are already being implemented,” Fourie said. “We need to build players at scale in Europe,” he added. “When we build players at scale, we can compete with the Americans or the Chinese.” Fourie has been vocal about his frustrations with defense efforts after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Airbus in October signed a memorandum of understanding with Italy’s Leonardo and France’s Thales to combine their space projects, setting up a European leader that could rival the likes of Star Musk. Satellites today underpin modern and critical infrastructure, such as telecommunications, science and national security. Leonardo is expected on Thursday to reveal plans for an AI-powered missile shield, dubbed the ‘Michelangelo Dome’, which combines various devices and platforms. Fourie said he expects Airbus’ three-way partnership “to be able to promote innovation, to invest at the right level in Europe, in Europe and also for the rest of the world.”
