On 3 July 2026, HM Government announced a 4.6 billion pound trilateral contract with Italy and Japan to advance Global Combat Air Programme fighter design. The deal formed part of an 8.6 billion pound four-year UK investment, targeted service by 2035, and support for 4,500 jobs and about 600 suppliers, according to HM Government.
Ukraine has secured a major contract, supported by Germany, for the supply of hundreds of PAC-2 and PAC-3 anti-ballistic missiles, with deliveries set to begin next year. At the same time, efforts are underway to obtain additional missiles from partner countries and to develop a domestic anti-ballistic missile capability.
AWS has launched a classified cloud environment tailored for defense industry workloads, naming Northrop Grumman as its initial confirmed user. The project aims to accelerate the development of sensitive defense programs, reducing the friction of classified IT infrastructure. However, the evidence for wider adoption or significant influence remains limited to this single customer deployment described by AWS executives.
We have been watching cheap commercial drones completely rewrite the rules of modern combat over the last few years, turning multimillion dollar tanks into scrap metal. Now, a Chinese defense firm has officially flipped the script by debuting the Lijian laser system. It is a man portable directed energy weapon that lets a lone infantryman melt incoming drones right out of the sky using a rig that fits into a standard backpack. This completely changes the math of ground warfare because troops no longer need massive vehicle mounted anti air systems to survive swarm attacks.
The real bottleneck for this kind of sci fi tech actually comes down to dirt, specifically rare earth elements and critical minerals. Pushing enough raw power through a backpack sized unit without melting the operator requires highly specialized materials. Here is a quick breakdown of the minerals making these portable lasers possible and who currently controls the supply chain:
| Mineral | Function in Laser Tech | Supply Chain Reality |
|---|---|---|
| Neodymium & Yttrium | Core components for solid state laser crystals | Production and refining heavily dominated by China |
| Gallium & Germanium | High power semiconductors and specialized optics | China recently restricted global exports of both |
| Lithium & Cobalt | Ultra dense battery packs required for firing | Complex global mining with China dominating the refining |
The scariest part is not just that this weapon exists. It is that China effectively has a chokehold on the exact materials required to mass produce them. If Western militaries want to equip their own troops with similar directed energy weapons, they have to face a very harsh reality:
We are looking at a near future where whoever controls the rare earth supply chain ultimately controls the airspace over the battlefield.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Redwire Corporation (NYSE: RDW), a global leader in aerospace and defense technology solutions, today announced that it has been awarded a contract by Taiwan Color Optics, Inc. (TCO), a subsidiary of SemiLux International Ltd., to deliver its Penguin Mk2.5 VTOL Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) to the Taiwan Coast Guard to support Taiwan’s broader maritime security and defense resilience planning.
Tranche 1 of the program represents a key milestone in Taiwan’s deployment of long-endurance uncrewed systems for maritime surveillance and law enforcement missions. Redwire’s Penguin Mk2.5 VTOL UAS was selected for the program based on its proven long-endurance performance, vertical takeoff and landing capability, and integrated EO/IR payloads for persistent maritime ISR missions.
"Our Penguin Mk2.5 VTOL aircraft is field proven for successful execution of all-weather monitoring and advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations," said Josh Stinson, Co-President and Chief Growth Officer of Redwire Defense Tech. "Tracking coastline and maritime activities can present unique challenges, and the Penguin is the ideal framework to enhance Taiwan’s coastal defense.”
With the ability to take off and land vertically, the Penguin Mk2.5 VTOL can be rapidly deployed, even in harsh or contested environments. Easily adaptable to meet variety of operations, the platform is well equipped to conduct day and night ISR missions, with the ability to track and target small moving objects.
I spent a few weeks studying Helsing, and a big focus was their hiring and team culture.
The board alone is impressive: Daniel Ek (Spotify), Tom Enders (ex-Airbus CEO), Denis Mercier (former French Air Force chief of staff and ex-NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation), and Jeannette zu Fürstenberg from General Catalyst.
On the exec side they pulled Antoine Bordes, who co-ran Meta's FAIR lab, and Robert Fink, the chief architect of Palantir Foundry, plus senior leaders out of Tesla. A lot of them are Europeans who'd gone to the US for big tech and came back specifically to work on European defence.