Helsing has launched a military AI platform built for a continent that no longer trusts other people's servers.
The Berlin-based defence technology company says Clarity runs entirely under European control, on infrastructure the customer owns.
The timing is no accident.
France has just stripped Palantir Technologies' software out of its domestic intelligence service, despite announcing a three-year renewal in December 2025.
That U-turn has become a rallying point for European "strategic autonomy", the idea that the continent should not depend on US technology for its security.
France's push goes well beyond one contract: it has committed €655 million to sovereign AI infrastructure and research through 2030.
How it works
Helsing describes Clarity as an agentic intelligence platform, meaning it uses hundreds of AI agents that can carry out tasks on their own.
Those agents pull in satellite, sensor and drone intelligence and process it through a shared military ontology, a common framework for how battlefield data is labelled and linked.
The result is targeting packages produced within seconds.
Helsing says human operators keep sole authority over any lethal strike, with a full audit trail of every decision.
The platform is built to NATO standards under the Modular Open Systems Approach, so it can work across hardware from different suppliers without bespoke engineering.
Money and orders
Helsing has the funding to back up the pitch.
It raised €600 million in June 2025 at a valuation of about €12 billion.
Read more
It then raised a further $1.8 billion in July 2026, valuing the company at $18 billion.
Germany approved an initial order worth about €269 million for Helsing's HX-2 loitering munitions, drones that circle a target area before striking, in February 2026.
That sits within a framework that could reach €1.46 billion.
The incumbent
Palantir is not going anywhere in the US.
The Pentagon awarded it a $480 million prototype contract for Maven, its AI targeting programme, in May 2024, and added a $795 million software licence extension in May 2025.
Europe has the political will.
Whether Helsing can turn that into firm contracts will decide how far Clarity reshapes the continent's defence software market.
