Stuttgart, 11 June, 2026 – GFT Technologies and INTEC Industrie-Technik GmbH today announced a strategic partnership to advance the modernization and sustainment of mission-critical systems for defense organizations through sovereign, operationally ready AI. Signed at the ILA Berlin Airshow, the partnership combines GFT’s industrialized AI engineering and the Wynxx Agentic AI Platform with INTEC’s deep expertise in defense engineering, Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) and mission-critical lifecycle management.
The collaboration addresses one of the most pressing operational challenges facing defense organizations across Europe: how to modernize increasingly complex mission-critical systems at the speed current geopolitical realities demand – while maintaining sovereignty, security and operational control.
Defense organizations today face mounting modernization and sustainment backlogs. Ageing software estates, fragmented lifecycle processes and extensive manual effort in technical documentation and maintenance continue to slow operational readiness and increase complexity. At the same time, pressure is growing to accelerate modernization timelines, improve resilience and increase operational efficiency across the full lifecycle of defense systems.
Yet generic AI solutions are often unsuitable for classified, safety-critical and sovereign environments where explainability, governance and national control are essential.
Together, GFT and INTEC address exactly this challenge.
Moving Defense AI from Experimentation to Sovereign Operational Capability
The partnership is designed to support defense organizations move beyond isolated AI experimentation toward scalable operational deployment. By combining sovereign AI architectures, responsible AI engineering and deep defense-domain expertise, the companies will support the modernization, sustainment and lifecycle management of mission-critical systems across air, land, sea and cyber domains.
Initial focus areas include AI-accelerated technical documentation, ILS optimization and modernization of legacy mission-critical software environments – areas where defense organizations continue to rely heavily on manual processes despite increasing operational demands.
“We believe that the technology used to defend a nation must serve the mission – not create dependency on a single vendor,” said Marco Santos, Global CEO of GFT Technologies. “GFT and INTEC are partnering to bring responsible, sovereign Data and AI solutions to the defense sector, embedding them into the design, modernization and maintenance of mission-critical systems. By combining GFT’s unique AI capabilities with INTEC’s deep defense domain expertise, we are deploying sovereign data platforms, secure cloud environments and responsible AI to protect Europe.”
Combining AI Industrialization with Defense Engineering Expertise
The collaboration brings together two highly complementary capabilities.
GFT contributes its expertise in responsible AI engineering, sovereign AI architectures and industrial-scale modernization, including the Wynxx Agentic AI Platform, which has demonstrated measurable impact in areas such as legacy modernization and technical documentation automation. INTEC contributes decades of independent defense engineering expertise across air, land, sea and cyber domains, including system integration, weapon-system logistics, ILS, technical documentation, safety and conformity, and unmanned systems.
Together, the companies aim to industrialize AI deployment in areas where trust, explainability and operational reliability are critical. The joint approach is specifically designed for sovereign and classified deployments, ensuring that data, models and operational decisions remain under national control while avoiding dependency and vendor lock-in through a model-agnostic and manufacturer-neutral architecture.
“Defense modernization is increasingly driven by software, data and lifecycle intelligence,” said Christoph Otten, CEO at INTEC Group. “Our partnership with GFT combines proven defense engineering expertise with sovereign AI capabilities designed for highly secure and mission-critical environments. This creates a practical path for defense organizations to modernize faster while retaining full control over their systems, data and operational processes.”
Accelerating Defense Modernization in Europe
The partnership reflects growing demand across Europe for trusted and sovereign technology capabilities amid accelerating defense investment and increasing geopolitical fragmentation.
Rather than focusing on isolated AI pilots, GFT and INTEC are positioning the collaboration around operational deployment and measurable modernization outcomes. The companies will combine responsible AI engineering, accreditation-aware delivery models and mission-ready lifecycle expertise to support modernization across the full system lifecycle – from software modernization and technical documentation to sustainment and operational readiness.
Use cases include, amongst others:
- Sovereign AI and data foundations for classified environments
- Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) optimization
- Legacy software modernization
- Lifecycle intelligence and sustainment automation
- AI-accelerated technical documentation and maintenance workflows
The collaboration builds on earlier joint work around sovereign AI readiness and reflects both companies’ shared focus on independence, trust and operational resilience.
