About this episode

Nathan Benaich interviews Hadrien Canter about Europe's air defense challenges and the role of AI in modern military strategy.

At RAAIS 2026, Nathan Benaich sits down with Hadrien Canter, co-founder and CEO of Alta Ares, the air-defense company building AI-guided interceptors to shoot down cheap drones and cruise missiles. They get into why Europe has lost air superiority for the first time in modern history, what the data loop looks like when you run it on a freezing front line instead of a laptop, why "quantity is the quality" in the industrialization race, and how the talent pool is shifting toward European defense. Recorded live at RAAIS 2026 in London. Chapters 00:00 — Introducing Hadrien Canter and Alta Ares 00:47 — 2022 in Ukraine, and how Europe lost air superiority 03:23 — The Series A and the Airbus partnership 05:13 — The data loop, edge AI, and the three phases of a mission 08:22 — What no simulation can reproduce 10:09 — Hiring for the mission; defense as the precondition for peace 12:36 — Open research questions and the human in the loop 14:22 — How the adversary uses AI: evasive Shaheds, drone mesh, China 17:27 — Two interceptors, and why quantity is the quality 20:50 — Iron Dome math, budgets, and peace-time vs war-time 23:41 — Q&A: keeping pace with a fast-changing front…

People in this episode

Host: Nathan Benaich

Guest: Hadrien Canter

Topics covered

• air defense
• AI technology
• European defense
• military strategy
• drones
• interceptors

Keywords

• air superiority
• AI-guided interceptors
• drones
• defense industry
• European defense
• military technology
• data loop

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Alta Ares

Places: Europe, RAAIS 2026, London

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