Bundeswehr wants to work more closely with start-ups

Army Chief of Staff Alfons Mais must digitize the Bundeswehr. Civilian start-ups should also help with this.

Alfons Mais, the inspector of the army and general of the Bundeswehr, is calling for cooperation with start-ups in order not to be left behind when it comes to technological developments. "I am convinced that we now also need to work with start-ups on traditional military problems. Today, nothing works in the military without digitalization," Mais told the Handelsblatt.

Mais recently attended a drone show that demonstrated how start-ups could deal with military conflicts. Mais is not only focusing on start-ups that specialize in military technology. Young civilian tech companies are also of interest to the Bundeswehr. "The time when military research drove civilian research is long gone. In the last two and a half or three decades, it looks more like the military is making civilian technologies usable," Mais tells Handelsblatt.

As inspector of the army, Mais is responsible for determining the needs of the troops. To do this, he also has to develop scenarios of what conflicts and wars could look like in ten to 15 years' time and what the Bundeswehr will need then. This is the period for innovations. Mais calls this "no longer acceptable". The army inspector describes Germany as "too risk-averse". That is why there are fewer innovations in Germany. "Start-ups are already entering the market with a different risk awareness, which we must use, support and also accept on our side if resources do not lead to the goal." New developments are needed above all in robotics, combined with AI. "I keep asking parliamentarians: do you want to imagine young European people having to fight against Chinese robots, for example? I don't want to imagine that," Mais told Handelsblatt.