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Indian AI company wins at UK-US military space pitch
The winners of same-day contracts worth up to £53,000 ($66,000) were announced on Tuesday after pitches were made directly to UK, US and Nato military leaders. The Indian company is 114 AI Innovation LLP, whose pitch titled “Spacewise” was selected for funding
A New Delhi-based artificial intelligence (AI) company is among 10 global winners in a UK-US initiative that aims to find, fund and fast-track innovation and technology that gives advantage to military personnel and operations in the space domain.
The winners of same-day contracts worth up to £53,000 ($66,000) were announced on Tuesday after pitches were made directly to UK, US and Nato military leaders. The Indian company is 114 AI Innovation LLP, whose pitch titled “Spacewise” was selected for funding.
Its brief was, “Exploitation tool-set to visualise, access and analyse multiple input streams of data for advanced space command and control using cognitive AI. This tool-set enables space operations with allies and commercial partners by allowing visualisation and analysis of multiple different sources of data in real time.”
Besides the Indian company, the other nine winners included five from the US, three from UK and one from Australia.
The defence ministry said it is the first time two nations anywhere in the world have come together to award defence contracts based around a pitch-style event, and also the first time two nations have awarded joint defence innovation contracts to overseas-based enterprises.
Air Vice-Marshal Harvey Smyth, UK director (Space), said, “Congratulations to the winners and all those that took part in the first International Space Pitch Day - it has captured the imagination of innovators and militaries not just across the UK and US, but all over the world.
“It has achieved several world firsts and we look forward to building on its success as we seek to fast-track innovation and cutting-edge technology to the front-line quicker than ever before with fresh ways of working with industry to make sure we stay ahead of our shared adversaries and the threats they pose.”
The competition was open to innovators and entrepreneurs from all over the world delivered through the UK jointly funded by the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Royal Air Force and the US Air Force.
