German military evaluating 30 AI tools for introduction from 2027

BERLIN, Sept 10 (Reuters) – The German military is evaluating 30 artificial intelligence tools to speed up battlefield decision-making, aiming to deploy such a system from 2027, a senior military official told business daily Handelsblatt.

“The exploration is ongoing, and I’m optimistic that we will have a prototype in the second quarter of 2027,” the chief of the military’s cyber command, Vice Admiral Thomas Daum, told the paper, with full implementation expected in 2028.

The war in Ukraine has highlighted how drones and satellites generate vast streams of data, making the battlefield transparent as never before while creating a need for AI to process information at a speed impossible for humans to match.

Most of the AI tools under review are made by German companies, with French firm ChapsVision among the few foreign businesses in the race, the paper said.

In April, Daum for now ruled out purchasing the Maven Smart System, the best-known AI tool of its kind, made by U.S. data analytics and defence software company Palantir.

The U.S., NATO commands and several allies are deploying Palantir’s Maven to analyse battlefield data, including images and video, to improve situational awareness and speed up decision-making.

Concerns over dependence on the U.S. and data sovereignty have fuelled resistance against Palantir in parts of Europe at a time when the U.S. is seen as a potentially unreliable ally after President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to quit NATO.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, editing by Thomas Seythal)