(Boursier.com) — Athea, joint venture ofAtos and of Thales, has been awarded phase 3 of the Artemis.IA project (Architecture for the Processing and Massive Exploitation of Multi-Source Information and Artificial Intelligence) by the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA). The Artemis.IA program provides scalable capabilities for massive data processing and artificial intelligence (AI) that meet the various business needs of the Ministry of the Armed Forces.
100% French in design, the Athea platform will enable the Ministry of the Armed Forces to develop new AI applications based on the exploitation of sensitive data, for various use cases.
Phase 1 of the project consisted of a proof of concept; phase 2 consisted of the production and evaluation of demonstrators. This new stage of the Artemis.IA project, conducted under the responsibility of the Defense Digital Agency (AND), includes the scaling up and industrialization of the platform delivered as part of the previous phase and already used by certain services.
In the future, Athea’s solution will enable the Ministry of the Armed Forces to develop new AI applications within its various systems, by reconciling decompartmentalization and controlled sharing of information. The fields of application are numerous and concern all areas that handle large volumes of data and for which sovereignty and security are key: intelligence, logistics, cybersecurity, health, etc. An Artemis.IA development and integration kit, open to the industrial and academic world, will also make it possible to create easily integrable applications and accelerate the innovation cycle.
The notification of June 24, 2022 embodies the work of the Athea teams, from Thales and Atos, as well as the entire big data ecosystem of the defense industrial and technological base. Around a hundred experts have already been working together on the optimization and industrialization preparation phase of the program for more than a year.
“This first major contract illustrates the confidence that the DGA and the armed forces have in Athea’s teams to develop a solution of very high technological level, specifically adapted to the world of defence”, specifies Philippe Gasc, President of Athea. “The exploitation of data represents a major challenge for maintaining the operational superiority of the armed forces. We are proud to develop a sovereign solution that will allow France to act autonomously in the fields of intelligence, command of operations and in digital space”.
Launched in July 2021, Athea relies on an ecosystem of large industrial and digital companies – including Capgemini, Sopra Steria Group and Airbus Defense & Space – but also ETIs, SMEs, startups, scale-ups, and specialized research organizations in big data processing and AI.