Industrial Depth

The rapid rise of companies such as Helsing shows why this approach matters. Founded in 2021, the European defence technology firm has quickly established itself as one of the continent’s leading artificial intelligence specialists, partnering with governments, armed forces and established manufacturers rather than competing with them directly. Its software integrates AI into existing military platforms, demonstrating how specialist technology companies can accelerate capability without requiring nations to replace entire systems. Rather than creating a parallel defence industry, companies like Helsing strengthen the one that already exists.

Different countries, similar direction: defence competitiveness is increasingly understood as a property of the ecosystem rather than the individual company.

Government policy, however, is only one part of the story. Industrial capability cannot be strengthened by policy alone; it also depends on how industry itself evolves. The world’s leading defence companies are changing how they engage with specialist suppliers. For decades, smaller companies were treated simply as vendors. Increasingly, they are recognised as strategic partners and sources of innovation.

RTX, one of the world’s largest aerospace and defence companies, works with tens of thousands of suppliers across its global operations and has invested heavily in supplier development, manufacturing readiness and digital collaboration, recognising that the strength of its own programmes depends on the resilience of the network supporting them. In many respects, today’s defence industrial ecosystem increasingly resembles the technology sector more than the traditional manufacturing model: large companies provide programme leadership, systems integration and global reach; specialist companies provide the software, AI, manufacturing techniques and engineering expertise that let those programmes evolve faster than their competitors.

National champions therefore remain indispensable. Their responsibilities extend well beyond manufacturing: they invest in research and development, maintain production facilities, manage international partnerships and navigate complex regulatory and export environments, giving governments confidence that critical programmes can be delivered at scale and sustained throughout their operational life. They also act as gateways to international markets: their global customer relationships create export opportunities that smaller suppliers would struggle to access independently, and when a major platform is sold internationally, hundreds of specialist companies can benefit through the wider supply chain.

But scale alone does not create competitiveness. Specialist companies contribute capabilities that large organisations often cannot replicate. Their smaller size lets them respond quickly to emerging requirements, explore novel technologies and concentrate talent on highly specialised engineering disciplines, and many breakthrough innovations originate within specialist firms before feeding into larger programmes and platforms. Both national champions and specialist players are therefore integral to sovereign defence production. The task facing any defence industrial ecosystem is to meet and anticipate the needs of a nation’s armed forces: sustaining production, responding during crises, and shortening the distance between identifying a requirement and fielding a solution.

If this specialist layer is the strategic objective, companies like Sindan demonstrate what it looks like in practice. Established in 2023 by Tawazun Council for Defence Enablement, Sindan specialises in AI-powered additive manufacturing and industrial automation, introducing next-generation precision manufacturing capabilities into the UAE’s industrial base. Rather than competing with major prime contractors, it strengthens them, providing specialised expertise that lets larger programmes evolve more rapidly and respond more effectively to emerging operational requirements.

“We work really closely with our partners because they need to understand us and we need to understand their platforms and systems,” says Heyuan Huang, managing director and CEO of Sindan. For Huang, the starting point is understanding precisely what the customer is trying to achieve rather than simply what they initially ask to manufacture. “Sometimes they say something, but mean something else since they are not familiar with 3D printing, so you have to explain it to them. It is really about problem solving; 3D printing is just part of the equation, it is not the full scope.”

That combination of precision, flexibility and speed is becoming increasingly important. Modern defence capability is no longer determined solely by who can design the most advanced platform. Increasingly, it is determined by who can improve, adapt and manufacture components at the pace operational demands require. “We are able to fast iterate and fast optimise a product for the industry,” Huang explains.

This year Sindan also began a partnership with Dubai-based LEAP 71 to jointly develop and manufacture air-breathing jet engines and space propulsion systems, combining LEAP 71’s computational engineering model, Noyron, with Sindan’s AI-driven manufacturing technologies, compressing design and development timelines from years to weeks. The partnership illustrates another feature of competitive defence ecosystems: specialist companies increasingly innovate not only with prime contractors but with one another, combining complementary expertise to move new capabilities from concept to production faster, before they feed into larger defence programmes.

Industrial capability is ultimately measured not by the number of companies in an ecosystem, but by the quality of the connections between them. As software, AI, autonomy, advanced materials and additive manufacturing become more tightly integrated, competitive advantage will increasingly belong to ecosystems that can bring specialist capabilities together faster than their rivals.

For decades, discussions about industrial capability have focused largely on scale: larger budgets, larger programmes, larger prime contractors. The evidence increasingly points elsewhere. Modern defence capability is no longer built solely inside the walls of a handful of major companies. It is built across connected networks of manufacturers, software developers, AI specialists, materials scientists, propulsion experts and precision engineering firms, whose collective capabilities determine how quickly an ecosystem can innovate, adapt and recover.

If deterrence is built on military capability, then military capability is increasingly built on the strength of the ecosystem beneath it. This is industrial depth.

National champions remain indispensable. They integrate systems, manage programmes and provide global reach. But increasingly, their success depends on the strength of the ecosystem surrounding them.

Tomorrow’s defence industrial leaders will not simply be those capable of building the largest platforms. They will be those capable of orchestrating the broadest networks of expertise, and translating ideas into deployable capability at speed.

The strongest defence ecosystems are not those with the biggest champions. They are those with the deepest roots.