Thales contributes defense expertise while CEA offers multimodal generative AI know-how to enhance AI solutions for critical missions.
Thales and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) have signed a new partnership agreement in the field of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Through this three-year renewable partnership, Thales will provide its AI expertise and deep knowledge of the defense and security sectors, while the CEA will contribute its know-how in multimodal generative AI (based on text, images, audio, electromagnetic signals, structured data, and other inputs) to accelerate the integration of AI into solutions for Thales customers with critical mission requirements. The Thales AI research teams at the Group’s AI accelerator for mission-critical systems will work with the CEA teams to deliver sovereign trusted AI solutions.
Thales’s AI Lab and CEA, both noted for innovation and critical research, have partnered to advance generative AI solutions, with a focus on intelligence and command applications. Generative AI can be developed to accelerate OODA command loops (observe, orient, decide, act) and implemented across the entire critical decision chain; sensing and data gathering, data transmission and storage, data processing, and decision support.
To simplify communication between member states in the context of a joint operation, trusted generative AI will facilitate interaction between operators and complex systems by translating their intentions into a sequence of actions and translating technical terms into the languages of the various nations involved.
Bertrand Tavernier, Chief Technical Officer for Thales’s Secure Communications and Information Systems business said, “This partnership with the CEA’s AI teams will combine the power of their research with our work at Thales’s AI accelerator, which brings together the Group’s technological expertise and deep knowledge of the defence and security sectors. Our customers — governments, armed forces, critical infrastructure operators — need trusted, sovereign generative AI solutions for their critical missions.”
Thales integrates AI into over 100 products and services, leveraging cutting-edge sensor and system technologies. These AI functionalities span across defence, aviation, space, cybersecurity, and digital identity sectors, tailored to address the stringent security and sovereignty requirements of Thales’s clientele.
Alexandre Bounouh, Director of the CEA’s List Institute, said, “This partnership builds on the long-standing collaboration between the CEA and Thales and extends it to the sensitive issue of generative AI, combining the expertise and excellence of the CEA’s research teams in AI safety and security with Thales’s AI accelerator’s strengths in the strategic domain of defence and security. It will support the CEA’s mission in safety, security and artificial intelligence with our partners and all institutional and industry stakeholders in this field.”
CEA is a prominent French research organization recognized globally for its innovative contributions across various scientific and technological domains.
The hardware and software solutions developed by the CEA with its academic and industry partners are aimed at applications where AI quality and performance are critical. They include sovereign applications for which the CEA is its customer (cybersecurity, defence, energy) and industrial applications to which the CEA contributes its expertise.
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Working with Thales, the CEA teams will be applying their expertise more specifically to develop LLMs (large language models) and VLMs (vision language models) for the sectors and use cases targeted by Thales.
