German Firm To Build 6,000 More AI Attack Drones For Ukraine

A European defense technology company said it will produce 6,000 AI-assisted drones for Ukraine.

Munich-based Helsing said on Thursday that it will supply Kyiv with the X-wing HX-2 electrically propelled drones that have a range of up to 100 km.

The company said the munitions' on-board AI allows it to be completely resistant to electronic warfare.

The HX-2, unveiled in 2024, has been "designed to be mass-producible and at significantly lower unit cost than conventional systems, thus filling a growing capability gap in modern land warfare," the company said.

Helsing said the new order follows a previous order of 4,000 HF-1 drones that are now being delivered to Ukraine, making the company "one of the largest strike drone manufacturers globally."

It said when the HX-2 is operating as part of its Altra recce-strike software, multiple drones can assemble into swarms under the control of one operator.

The software "intelligently connects all elements of the battlefield to transform the accuracy, speed and robustness of modern land forces. Altra uses AI to achieve scaled target acquisition and coordinated precision effects."

"We are scaling up production of HX-2 in response to additional orders from Ukraine, where precision mass is offsetting a numerical disadvantage in legacy systems on a daily basis. It is clear that NATO has important lessons to learn, and fast," Gundbert Scherf, co-founder of Helsing, said.

"With our Resilience Factories, we are taking a distributed approach towards mass manufacturing these systems across Europe, allowing individual nation states to produce locally and ensure sovereignty of production and supply chain," Scherf said.