The decision came after a vote by residents. With a clear majority of 59 to 41 percent, they voted in favor of the project. Bavaria’s Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) commented: “The citizens of Hallbergmoos have recognized the great economic opportunities and our responsibility to strengthen Germany’s defense capabilities.”
Helsing has secured a 250,000-square-meter site in the municipality north of Munich near the airport. In the first phase, however, only just under half of the area, 120,000 square meters, will be developed. Overall, Helsing plans to invest a three-digit million-euro amount in the factory. The new plant is expected to create around 300 jobs.
Helsing is one of Europe’s most valuable unicorns in the defense sector – a unicorn is a startup valued at more than one billion euros or US dollars. Helsing crossed that mark in 2023, two years after its founding.
The company builds drones, including the roughly one-meter-long HX-2 and the eleven-meter-long CA-1 Electronic Attack. The latter is an AI-powered autonomous combat aircraft, while the former is a so-called loitering weapon. This is an unmanned aerial vehicle that circles over the battlefield until a suitable target appears for it to attack. This can be done by the pilot, but there are also loitering weapons that attack autonomously.
The HX-2 is not uncontroversial: tests in Ukraine with the drone, which can be loaded with up to 4.5 kilograms of explosives, were not necessarily convincing. Nevertheless, the Bundeswehr has ordered several thousand units for the Brigade. In addition, Helsing produces autonomous underwater vehicles as well as software with artificial intelligence (AI) for the defense sector.
Source: www.heise.de
