An uncrewed vehicle is seen at the EDGE stand during IDEX 2023. (Agnes Helou/Breaking Defense)
Update 3/2/23 at 8:16 am ET: After publication, a spokesperson for EDGE Group contacted Breaking Defense to clarify AlMulla’s comments regarding the Checkmate, as is reflected below.
IDEX 2023 — Inaugurated in 2019, EDGE Group has prioritized increasing local production of defense systems from outside companies, taking their intellectual property and producing articles in the United Arab Emirates. At the same time, the company is developing its own defense articles, including autonomous systems — raising questions about whether it is essentially creating competition for its own products against itself.
The conglomerate’s CEO and managing director, Mansour AlMulla, sat down on day one of IDEX to explain his corporate strategy in an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense. He talked about whether the Emirati firm will be a part of Russia’s Su-75 Checkmate program, its willingness to cooperate with Chinese and Russian firms as well as the company’s focus for the near future.
The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Breaking Defense is reporting from the show floor of IDEX 2023. Click HERE to keep up with the latest coverage.
BREAKING DEFENSE: What are the main focal point for Edge group? And why is heavy concentration on autonomous systems?
MANSOUR ALMULLA: We’re looking at modern warfare in a different way than how you used to look at it. Electronic warfare and autonomous systems are becoming more, kind of, competitive when it comes to modern warfare, [and] our focus from day one has been on technologically advanced systems as opposed to conventional ones.
The niche we want to be a part of is autonomous systems, electronic warfare and smart weapons. These are predominantly our [focus areas]. These are very important because they bring additional advantage when it comes to these solutions and providing [an] upper hand in the modern [age]. We are trying to advance those capabilities as such, and we have come a long way. We’ve seen advancements in the number of offering products — you know, we started off with about 10-15 products and today we are talking about 110 products. Some of them are in development, some of them are already produced in huge numbers.
We have many drones including hunter swarming drones, and now it’s more about making them smarter. So, the swarming capabilities and artificial intelligence machine learning are part of what we want to introduce with time. We are making good progress when it comes to these capabilities.
We’ve noticed lately, Edge has been heavily investing in western firms like Milrem Robotics and other firms. What’s the logic behind this step? And how do you plan to merge these entities into EDGE?
These are very exciting opportunities that we recently announced. So the investment in Milrem covers a couple of RCVs — robotic combat vehicles or remote control vehicles — as well and we are very excited about these because these are capabilities that can be modular, so we can implement it in different cases [for] land, sea or air. They try to onboard some of these capabilities into other products that we currently have. And at the same time benefit from the great strides they already have created over the last few years.
If there are players that are available to tie up, to join forces with and accelerate our timetable, we go for it. We are looking at different investments, we are looking at different targets and we’ll continue to kind of look at them. We’re not going to [be] very aggressive in terms of acquisitions, but we will be looking at those very kind of “sweet spots” when it comes to supporting our development program.
Does edge have any plans to invest in Chinese or Russian firms?
In terms of buying, we’re country agnostic, we don’t have tags on specific countries. Today we have excellent relationships with a lot of partners in China, Russia, and with the different countries. We cooperate with big players such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Airbus, MBDA and others.
And we have great relationships with a lot of players and we’ll continue to look at that, but we’re not going to go make a selection based on the country or tag.
Rosobornexport’s CEO said that the firm is offering Joint Production of its fifth-generation fighter jet, the Su-75 Checkmate, with Middle East countries. Are you interested in this cooperation? And is Edge already in negotiations with Rosobornexport?
When it comes to building fighter jets, if there are ways to cooperate on sub-systems, like reconnaissance ISR and others, we definitely look at [partnerships]. From our perspective, I am not familiar with the details of the program, but we’re more than open to work with our partners. We are not [currently] in negotiations with Rosobornexport for the Checkmate co-production.
What is your next five-year plan?
We’re looking at deliveries. In the last three years we have managed to secure good contracts, [and] our focus at this stage is the delivery and fulfilment of these projects. We are also working on accelerating our development programs. Continuously looking at new opportunities and all competing opportunities, and [we will] dial-up/dial-down based on what is out there and what the market is in pursuit of. We will also of course look at growing our financials. Top line/bottom line over the next five years, I think we are set for a good five years to come.
