{"id":54161,"date":"2026-04-23T08:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/54161\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:57:10","slug":"swiss-defence-firm-ruag-to-rely-entirely-on-swiss-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/54161\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss defence firm RUAG to rely entirely on Swiss AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"swiss<\/p>\n

The sovereignty of artificial intelligence is becoming a major strategic issue for the military. <\/p>\n

Keystone \/ Peter Klaunzer <\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence sovereignty is becoming a major strategic issue for the military. Swiss defence firm RUAG has partnered with a Lausanne-based startup to develop a fully Swiss and independent AI tool designed for processing sensitive data.\n<\/p>\n

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This content was published on <\/p>\n

April 23, 2026 – 09:51\n<\/p>\n

\n Michael Maccabez and Miroslav Mares, RTS <\/p>\n

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In Thun, at RUAG\u2019s headquarters, the company recently presented \u201cLLARA\u201d \u2013 an internally developed conversational AI tool \u2013 to some of its employees. This tool is intended to support technological advancements in Swiss defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am truly convinced that AI will play a major role across the entire defence sector. This will lead to major upheavals. We\u2019re already seeing them unfold in real time. And there will be many, many more changes,\u201d explains Stephan Hirth, vice president of communications and secure sensors at RUAG, on Swiss public television, RTS.<\/p>\n

+ Switzerland aspires to build \u2018human\u2019 artificial intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n

Responsible for the maintenance and technological development of the Swiss Army, the company is already considering concrete applications. \u201cI imagine that one day, we\u2019ll be sitting in a tank and talking to a chatbot like this. Whether it\u2019s \u2018LLARA\u2019 or not, I don\u2019t know. But I think we\u2019re clearly heading in that direction,\u201d says Hirth.<\/p>\n

The challenge of total control<\/p>\n

\u201cLLARA\u201d will soon integrate a new engine with improved reasoning capabilities, developed in Switzerland by the Lausanne-based startup Giotto.AI. The company has designed a model capable of competing with its American or Chinese counterparts in international rankings, while consuming significantly less data. This lightweight design allows it to be operated in a siloed manner, without an internet connection \u2013 a key advantage for the defence sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen data and processes are sensitive, we need technology that can be deployed on infrastructure we control. For defence, having a portable model that can be installed wherever needed is obviously essential,\u201d explains Aldo Podest\u00e0, CEO of Giotto.AI.<\/p>\n

For Giotto.AI, sovereignty over data and the technical process is a key selling point. \u201cWe\u2019re not yet at the point where 80% of the economy depends on AI. But it\u2019s coming,\u201d says Podest\u00e0. \u201cSo it\u2019s extremely important \u2013 it\u2019s fundamental for a country \u2013 to have complete control over the intelligence. It\u2019s not something you can just rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Swiss Army is receptive<\/p>\n

According to the head of its cyber command, \u201cit is crucial for the armed forces to master both the hardware and the models and have sovereign models, because we often deal with classified information and cannot afford to make it accessible via the cloud or through a public model.\u201d<\/p>\n

Major General Simon M\u00fcller asserts, \u201cArtificial intelligence and machine learning hold enormous potential for the armed forces, particularly in operational situations. We are faced with a considerable amount of data from sensors, for example, and analysing it can prove extremely useful. But it can also be used for pattern recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translated from French by AI\/jdp<\/p>\n

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If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at\u00a0english@swissinfo.ch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sovereignty of artificial intelligence is becoming a major strategic issue for the military. Keystone \/ Peter Klaunzer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,3931,301,9334,114,2143,22825,100,103,1434,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-54161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-beat-best-of-srg-content","10":"tag-beat-foreign-affairs","11":"tag-beat-swiss-ai","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-foreign-affairs","14":"tag-kpi-srg-curation-geopolitics","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-production-type-deepl-autotranslation","17":"tag-sci-tech","18":"tag-switzerland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116453195579533215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}