Helsing Moves From Software Into Hardware With Its Area 9 Lab and RX-1 Robot
Paris, 1 June 2026
Key points
- At a Paris launch on 1 June, Helsing announced Area 9, an advanced-research division led by chief scientist Antoine Bordes, and the RX-1, its first European-designed and -manufactured robotics research platform
- Area 9's debut project, Centaur, is an AI pilot for air combat already flown on the Saab Gripen under the Helsing–Saab Project Beyond — now the foundational technology of the CA-1 Europa autonomous fighter
- The RX-1 is an outdoor field-robotics platform with in-house actuators and European manufacturing; first academic partners are ETH Zurich and INRIA
- The moves extend Helsing from autonomy software into sovereign European hardware
Helsing launched an advanced-research division, Area 9, and its first robotics platform, the RX-1, at a Paris event on 1 June — building the German defence-AI firm out from software into sovereign European hardware, with its Centaur air-combat pilot now anchoring the CA-1 Europa autonomous fighter.
Area 9, led by chief scientist Antoine Bordes, is Helsing's bet on owning the research stack rather than buying it. Its debut project, Centaur, is an AI pilot for air combat that Helsing has already integrated into a Saab Gripen under Project Beyond, the Swedish-supported Helsing–Saab effort flown over the Baltic in 2025. Centaur is now the foundational technology of the CA-1 Europa, the three-to-five-tonne autonomous fighter Helsing unveiled in 2025 with Grob Aircraft and Hensoldt sensors, targeting service around 2029.
The RX-1 is the hardware companion: an outdoor field-robotics platform with in-house-designed actuators and European manufacturing, pitched as a sovereign alternative to the American and Chinese research robots on which European labs depend. Helsing named ETH Zurich and INRIA as its first academic partners.
The proprietary read. Helsing is integrating downward — from the autonomy software that made its name into the airframes, robots and research platforms that run it. The logic is sovereignty as a full stack: an AI pilot is only as sovereign as the aircraft it flies and the robots it trains on, and a European champion that owns only the software is hostage to whoever builds the body. The CA-1 Europa is the proof case — a European autonomous fighter whose brain, airframe and sensors are all continental. The open question is execution: a software firm becoming a hardware integrator is a different company, and 2029 is close. Tracked in Signal No. 72.
Sources: Helsing · Saab.
First reported in Signal No. 72, 1 June 2026.