Thales in ‘quite advanced’ talks with NATO countries on AI-powered command software — SkimNews
Get the Tech newsletter
Daily tech — startups, AI labs, chips, the launches that shape the next decade. Free.
- Thales is in "quite advanced" discussions with several NATO countries on deploying HexaForce, its AI-powered command-and-control system, per VP for multi-domain operations Patrick Moreau in a Sept. 24 interview with Defense News.
- HexaForce was tested at NATO's Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise (CWIX) in Poland in June, with Thales announcing availability last week; a nine-month design-to-deployment cycle already put the first version in French Army hands.
- The system is built as a multi-domain C2 "overlay" spanning army corps down to battalion level, with Thales's stated goal of enabling 1,000 target missions per day — a tenfold jump in planning capacity.
- Built around NATO's Data-Centric Security and Federation Mission Networking standards, HexaForce uses a distributed mesh architecture and lets users plug in their own large language models to avoid vendor lock-in.
- NATO already operates a C2 system supplied by US-based Palantir Technologies, while the EU pushes European alternatives over sovereignty concerns; Moreau said HexaForce could become a "cornerstone" of France's separate sovereign system Arcadia.
Why it matters: Thales is pitching HexaForce as a sovereign-friendly alternative to NATO's existing Palantir C2 system, betting that interoperability with legacy platforms and freedom from vendor lock-in will win buyers. As France separately builds its own Arcadia C2 system and the EU accelerates sovereign alternatives, HexaForce's reception will test whether European interoperability or US-supplied systems define multi-domain command in the alliance.
Ask SkimNews
