Thales has been selected for the Artificial Intelligence Deployable Agent (AIDA) project funded by the European Commission through the European Defense Fund (EDF).
A total of 28 European industry partners, start-ups and research centers have joined forces on this project to develop a sovereign AI-enabled cybersecurity agent to protect aircraft systems from cyberattacks.
The goal of this three-and-a-half-year European project is to design an AI with an autonomous or semi-autonomous response capability to provide cybersecurity protection for aircraft systems such as onboard computers a nd electronic warfare systems on combat aircraft, which are vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks in today’s high-intensity conflicts.
AIDA is the first European structural framework project in support of the NATO concept of Autonomous Intelligent Cyberdefense Agent (AICA).
Thales is technical coordinator for the AIDA project funded by the European Commission, with CR14 in Estonia in charge of overall project coordination.
This EDF project is a response to three major challenges faced by the armed forces today: attack surfaces are growing due to battlespace digitization; the cyberattack detection-response chain needs to be automated due to the ever-greater use of autonomous systems such as drones and robots; and AI is being used ever more widely both to launch and respond to cyberattacks.
Christophe Salomon, Executive Vice President, Secure Communications & Information Systems, Thales: “This project initiated by the European Union is fundamental to the security of our combat systems and the sovereignty of our cyberdefense capabilities. It is a chance for Thales to consolidate its strengths in onboard aircraft systems and sovereign cybersecurity solutions, and a further opportunity to leverage our AI hacking expertise. Thales's AI accelerator, and in particular cortAIx, will be directly involved in the AIDA project. The ultimate goal is to employ AI-enabled techniques for detecting threats and protecting aircraft systems from the growing risks and dangers encountered in today’s high-intensity, technology-driven conflicts.”