Stuttgart, 11 June, 2026 – GFT Technologies and INTEC Industrie-Technik GmbH today announced a strategic partnership to advance the modernisation and sustainment of mission-critical systems for defence organisations through sovereign, operationally ready AI. Signed at the ILA Berlin Airshow, the partnership combines GFT’s industrialised AI engineering and the Wynxx Agentic AI Platform with INTEC’s deep expertise in defence engineering, Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) and mission-critical lifecycle management.
The collaboration addresses one of the most pressing operational challenges facing defense organisations across Europe: how to modernise increasingly complex mission-critical systems at the speed current geopolitical realities demand – while maintaining sovereignty, security and operational control.
Defence organisations today face mounting modernisation 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 modernisation timelines, improve resilience and increase operational efficiency across the full lifecycle of defence 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 defence AI from experimentation to sovereign operational capability
The partnership is designed to support defence organisations' move beyond isolated AI experimentation toward scalable operational deployment. By combining sovereign AI architectures, responsible AI engineering and deep defence-domain expertise, the companies will support the modernisation, sustainment and lifecycle management of mission-critical systems across air, land, sea and cyber domains.
Initial focus areas include AI-accelerated technical documentation, ILS optimisation and modernisation of legacy mission-critical software environments – areas where defence organisations 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 defence sector, embedding them into the design, modernisation and maintenance of mission-critical systems. By combining GFT’s unique AI capabilities with INTEC’s deep defence domain expertise, we are deploying sovereign data platforms, secure cloud environments and responsible AI to protect Europe.”
Combining AI industrialisation with defence engineering expertise
The collaboration brings together two highly complementary capabilities.
GFT contributes its expertise in responsible AI engineering, sovereign AI architectures and industrial-scale modernisation, including the Wynxx Agentic AI Platform, which has demonstrated measurable impact in areas such as legacy modernisation and technical documentation automation. INTEC contributes decades of independent defence 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 industrialise 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.
“Defence modernisation is increasingly driven by software, data and lifecycle intelligence,” said Christoph Otten, CEO at INTEC Group. “Our partnership with GFT combines proven defence engineering expertise with sovereign AI capabilities designed for highly secure and mission-critical environments. This creates a practical path for defence organisations to modernise faster while retaining full control over their systems, data and operational processes.”
Accelerating defence modernisation in Europe
The partnership reflects growing demand across Europe for trusted and sovereign technology capabilities amid accelerating defence investment and increasing geopolitical fragmentation.
Rather than focusing on isolated AI pilots, GFT and INTEC are positioning the collaboration around operational deployment and measurable modernisation outcomes. The companies will combine responsible AI engineering, accreditation-aware delivery models and mission-ready lifecycle expertise to support modernisation across the full system lifecycle – from software modernisation 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) optimisation
- Legacy software modernisation
- 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.
