Dassault Aviation and Harmattan AI announced a strategic partnership today, anchored by a $200 million Series B investment led by the French aircraft manufacturer. The collaboration goes far beyond a traditional financial arrangement, representing a deliberate industrial and operational choice to place sovereign, controlled artificial intelligence at the core of France’s next-generation air combat capabilities.
The partnership is designed to focus on embedded autonomy rather than standalone solutions, supporting both the evolution of the Rafale F5 fighter and the development of a future Unmanned Combat Aerial System (UCAS) intended to operate in close coordination with manned aircraft in highly contested environments. This initiative underscores Dassault’s vision of integrating AI not as an optional add-on, but as a central, operationally supervised component of mission systems, tightly coupled with aircraft architecture.
French defence doctrine has long emphasized national control over critical technologies, particularly when systems can deliver lethal effects. Within this framework, Dassault’s partnership with Harmattan AI is explicitly focused on maintaining full sovereignty over algorithms, data flows, and decision-support logic. The AI is designed to assist aircrews, compress decision timelines, and manage operational complexity without replacing human responsibility.
Dassault executives stress that human oversight remains central to combat operations. “Autonomy in our vision is not about replacing pilots—it’s about empowering them,” a spokesperson said. “The AI acts as a multiplier, enabling crews to operate more effectively in environments where electronic warfare, degraded communications, and information saturation create extreme challenges.”
Founded in 2024, Harmattan AI has rapidly established itself as a defence-oriented AI company developing vertically integrated autonomous systems rather than isolated software tools. Its portfolio spans layered air defence, coordinated ISR and strike UAV operations, electronic warfare solutions, and advanced command-and-control platforms. The company reports that its systems are already deployed at scale with several NATO and allied partners, supporting multiple defence programs in France and the United Kingdom.
The new funding round is intended to accelerate Harmattan AI’s expansion, extending capabilities across additional operational domains and scaling industrial production for ISR, counter-drone, and electronic warfare platforms. Dassault’s investment brings both capital and access to its industrial ecosystem, offering Harmattan AI a pathway from rapid innovation to integration in airworthy, certifiable military systems.
For Dassault Aviation, the partnership aligns closely with the long-term roadmap of the Rafale, particularly the F5 standard expected around 2030. Rafale F5 is increasingly positioned as a platform optimized for collaborative combat, capable of operating as part of a broader system-of-systems rather than in isolation. AI is central to this vision, acting as a cockpit multiplier that helps crews manage information saturation, coordinate distributed assets, and maintain operational effectiveness in degraded environments.
The F5 standard is part of a larger strategy to integrate manned and unmanned systems. The French UCAS program, initiated in 2024, envisions stealthy, internally armed unmanned platforms operating in tandem with Rafale fighters. The goal is not to replace pilots, but to enhance force capability through a tightly integrated, manned-unmanned team.
Within this framework, Harmattan AI contributes to controlled and predictable autonomy, enabling unmanned systems to execute complex tasks while remaining under human supervision. This includes functions such as route planning, threat detection, sensor management, and electronic attack coordination, all designed to reduce pilot workload and compress decision timelines.
The practical benefits of AI-enabled manned-unmanned collaboration are clear. Autonomous systems can detect and classify threats faster than human operators alone, manage deconfliction between crewed and uncrewed assets, and execute coordinated effects such as ISR, electronic attack, or strike missions. Crucially, the human crew remains in command, ensuring that ethical and operational responsibility is never delegated to an algorithm.
“This is not about removing humans from the loop,” noted a defence analyst familiar with the program. “It’s about making faster, more informed decisions in environments that would overwhelm traditional command and control systems.”
Dassault’s involvement highlights the industrial depth of the partnership. Beyond financial investment, Dassault brings decades of experience in designing and certifying complex military aircraft, integrating mission systems for high-intensity operations, and supporting international fleet sustainment. For Harmattan AI, this expertise provides the infrastructure and processes needed to scale from prototype software to field-deployed, certifiable systems capable of operating in highly contested airspaces.
The timing of the agreement is also notable. By committing substantial resources in 2026, Dassault is effectively pulling elements of its 2030s air combat architecture into the present. Autonomy and mission AI are no longer future enhancements—they are now foundational capabilities shaping current platform design, integration, and operational planning.
The Dassault–Harmattan AI partnership signals a shift from conceptual discussions of “loyal wingmen” to a structured, industrialized approach to collaborative combat. Rafale F5 and the future UCAS are envisioned not merely as co-deployed platforms, but as integrated elements of a single combat system, capable of sharing data, intent, and tasking logic while maintaining human authority over lethal decisions.
In an era characterized by contested airspace, rapid decision cycles, and increasingly sophisticated electronic warfare threats, this integration is critical. AI acts as an operational enabler, ensuring that human crews remain effective despite information overload, compressed timelines, and complex coordination challenges.
The partnership also underscores France’s broader strategic emphasis on sovereign AI capabilities in defence. By investing in a domestic AI company with proven operational deployments, Dassault strengthens national control over critical technologies while accelerating the development of next-generation air combat systems.
Industry observers note that this move may influence allied programs as well. As NATO and European partners increasingly explore collaborative manned-unmanned operations, Dassault and Harmattan AI’s approach could serve as a model for integrating sovereign AI into certified combat platforms while preserving operational control and human oversight.
As the Rafale F5 moves toward deployment and UCAS prototypes advance, the Dassault–Harmattan AI partnership is expected to play a central role in shaping the future of French air combat. The integration of AI, autonomy, and human oversight represents a decisive step toward a new paradigm in warfare—one where decision speed, resilience, and operational control matter as much as raw platform performance.
Dassault’s CEO described the partnership as a “strategic investment in the future of air combat,” emphasizing that the company is not just funding innovation but actively embedding it into operational systems that will define air superiority for decades to come.
For Harmattan AI, the collaboration provides both validation and scale, positioning the company as a leading provider of sovereign, operationally focused AI solutions capable of supporting not only French defence programs but potentially allied forces worldwide.
The $200 million Dassault–Harmattan AI partnership represents a significant milestone in the evolution of air combat, reflecting a deliberate approach to sovereign autonomy, manned-unmanned integration, and mission-critical AI. By embedding autonomy directly into aircraft systems, prioritizing human oversight, and emphasizing industrialized, deployable solutions, France is charting a course toward highly resilient, collaborative air combat networks capable of meeting the demands of the next decade.
In doing so, Dassault Aviation and Harmattan AI are not merely advancing technology—they are reshaping the operational philosophy of air warfare, demonstrating that controlled AI is not a distant aspiration but an actionable, integral part of future combat systems.
