The AI military comple Which are the main companies in it?
Billions of dollars is flowing into a handful of companies now leading the AI transformation of militaries. For centuries, fighting wars meant deploying hardware such
Billions of dollars is flowing into a handful of companies now leading the AI transformation of militaries. For centuries, fighting wars meant deploying hardware such as tanks, aircraft, artillery and weapons, built by a handful of prime contractors under long-term government programmes. It also meant putting boots on the ground. That paradigm is not disappearing, but software is becoming increasingly central to it. And now, more soldiers are fighting wars through a screen. The military AI industry now encompasses everything from cloud computing to autonomous drones and decision-making software. This shift traces back to the US drone programme of the 2000s and 2010s, which turned remote, screen-based killing into a feature of how wars would be fought. Billions of dollars are flowing into a handful of companies now leading the AI transformation of militaries, as the old military-industrial complex reshapes itself into a military-tech one. As part of a series on AI and warfare, Al Jazeera looks at who some of these companies are. Who are these companies? On July 10, the UK Ministry of Defence signed a 2bn pounds ($2.7bn), 15-year contract with Omnia Training, a consortium led by Raytheon UK, to train 60,000 soldiers a year on using AI to make a “combat-ready” British military. Days earlier, NATO awarded contracts to run the alliance’s Enhanced Air Command and Control Data Platform to US military-tech company Anduril for its Lattice AI software alongside US firm Palantir and the French military-tech joint venture Athea SAS. Lattice uses AI and computer vision to bring data from multiple sources into one live picture. AI defence procurements are not new. The Pentagon’s 2014 “Third Offset Strategy” bet explicitly on AI defining the next generation of warfare, but the pace appears to be picking up as global military expenditure climbed to $2.88 trillion in 2025, with governments pouring record sums into defence budgets.
The most recent large deal by the Pentagon saw it sign contracts with eight of the world’s leading tech companies to deploy AI across classified networks in a bid to become an “AI-first” military. With wars raging from Ukraine to the Middle East, deals like these are multiplying fast, and the industry itself is evolving just as quickly – traditional arms firms and new entrants alike are jostling for a slice of the market. One way to make sense of this shifting landscape is to look at where companies sit based on their business models. Researchers at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) mapped the AI military industry, grouping firms into four categories based on their role in the industry Defence primes: traditional arms companies Neoprimes or defence startups: newer firms specialising in software for the military industry Big tech: tech giants that have massive cloud/computing capacity Foundational model providers: frontier AI labs building advanced AI models Below, we outline what each of these does, according to SIPRI’s analysis, and which companies occupy each category. Defence primes/contractors These are the long-established arms manufacturers that have supplied militaries with systems and hardware for decades, and are now layering AI onto those existing systems. The largest of these firms include Lockheed Martin Corp, RTX, Northrop Grumman Corp, BAE Systems and General Dynamics Corp, all of which hit all-time highs after the onset of the US-Israel war on Iran. Part of that rally reflects how deeply AI is now being woven into these old guard arms companies’ own product lines. In February, Lockheed Martin announced that it was flight-testing an AI tool for its F-35 fighter jets to help pilots identify hostile aircraft faster.
The BriefWire