Battle to become the global leader in defence tech gets heated

In a world riven by conflict, Germany's Helsing and US-based Anduril are piling on value as order books bulge.

- By Tamzin Booth

At the annual Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) weapons bazaar this week in east London, visitors chuckled at the layout which stationed defence-tech rivals Anduril and Helsing directly facing each other.

Their representatives were at pains not to look too obviously across the aisle at the other's hardware and guests.

With global defence spending reaching record highs the mood was triumphal. America's Anduril and Germany's Helsing share a punchy vision of AI software-defined defence and of the need to disrupt a status quo where prime defence contractors such as America's Lockheed Martin, France's Thales and Britain's BAE Systems build exquisite, complex platforms — aircraft carriers and fighter jets and so on — at huge taxpayer expense, facing little competition.

"Anduril and Helsing are global leaders of a broad trend in which nations look beyond the prime defence contractors they have traditionally relied upon," says Admiral Mike Rogers, former commander, US Cyber Command and former director of the US National Security Agency, now at Brunswick, the corporate advisory firm. They are the poster children for where defence is going: towards AI, autonomy and lower per-unit costs.

Both companies are taking advantage of an investment frenzy around defence-tech innovation. The value of venture capital investment in defence, much of it going towards AI and robotics, has reached $7bn (£5.16) so far in 2025, four times the level of 2022 when Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.