Thales looks to export new C2 platform to Gulf nations, says executive

BEIRUT — French aerospace and defense giant Thales is pitching its new artificial intelligence-enabled command and control system, dubbed HexaForce, as a solution specifically for the Gulf market, a top executive told Breaking Defense.

“We do believe that there is an operational need and a solution based on our open standard, being able to address the sovereignty for the countries. We do believe that this solution is already fit for purpose regarding the Gulf,” Thales Vice President for Multi-Domain Operations Patrick Moreau said in an interview Tuesday.

Moreau declined to comment on any discussions the company may be having with individual Middle East customers.

Unveiled Sept. 17, HexaForce is designed to “accelerate decision-making and secure operational advantage at every level of command” for “NATO and allied nations,” the company’s release explains.

“This solution is a data, AI-powered solution. We leverage on the AI to develop quite fast, and there is agentic and LLM [large language model] inside this solution [that] could really allow the end users, for instance, to propose targeting solution to the operator, meaning that it allows the operator to process a huge amount of data,” Moreau said.

He added that HexaForce is based on open-source data, allowing users to reinforce sovereign capability within the state. This means, Moreau explained, if “you understand how it has been built and you could adapt the solution for the local needs. The [operational] data remains the property of the nation, meaning that it will remain within the country, guaranteeing the sovereignty of the solution.”

Thales says the platform also covers both strategic- and tactical-level decision making. While the C2 platform has yet to be deployed in any conflict, it has been tested in military exercises like the CWIX NATO exercise that took place in June in Poland.

The live-trial phases of HexaForce will forge a path for “for full-scale deployment, targeting an increase in capacity from 100 to 1,000 targets processed per day,” Thales’ release states.

Regarding the possibility of coproduction of this system with Gulf states in compliance with localization efforts in the region, Moreau answered, “whenever we deploy it locally, we could rely on domestic capabilities of Thales and/or partners to develop AI-powered capability, which are much more sovereign, considered as sovereign eyes only by the country.”

Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar have stressed local production in recent years according to national mandates.