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David SenraDavid Senra

Building Defense Technologies to Protect Democracies | Torsten Reil, Helsing

Torsten Reil has spent his career working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, simulation and entrepreneurship. He began as a biologist studying neural networks and complex systems before founding NaturalMotion, whose technology was used in films including Lord of the Rings, Troy and Harry Potter and later in games including Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. After building and selling NaturalMotion, he eventually returned to entrepreneurship to co-found Helsing, a European defense technology company focused on artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. Reil believes warfare is undergoing a fundamental shift from humans operating expensive weapons systems toward what he calls autonomous mass: large numbers of AI-controlled machines operating together. He explains why drones are making tanks, artillery and eventually crewed fighter jets increasingly vulnerable; how AI can navigate without GPS in jammed environments; and why Helsing developed Centaur, an AI fighter pilot that has controlled a real Saab Gripen in air combat against a human-operated aircraft. That work led Helsing to begin building its own autonomous fighter jet, the CA1 Europa. The underlying strategy is to combine simpler, mass-manufacturable hardware with increasingly capable software. Reil argues that future conflicts will become battles of materiel, making manufacturing capacity as important as technological sophistication. Helsing's HX-2 strike drone was redesigned to scale from dozens of units per month to a baseline of 1,000, with the ability to surge to 3,000. He also explains Helsing's concept of distributed “resilience factories,” which allow countries to manufacture systems domestically while reducing their dependence on vulnerable centralized production facilities. Reil also describes how he runs Helsing and why he considers talent density the most important ingredient in company performance and culture. The company closely monitors recruiting, conducts quarterly performance calibration and makes an unusually large investment in finding and retaining exceptional people. He discusses Helsing's values of “whatever it takes” and “the truth is in the field,” why founders should pursue ambitions large enough to matter, and why he believes commentary has little value compared with actually building something that changes the world. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/torsten-reil Made possible by Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://applovin.com Deel: https://deel.com/senra David Senra Website: https://www.davidsenra.com X: https://x.com/davidsenra Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidsenra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidsenra Facebook: https://www.linkedin.com/company/senrashow Threads: https://www.threads.com/@davidsenra Spotify: https://spti.fi/TVrr557 Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4msoZtb Torsten Reil Helsing: https://helsing.ai X: https://x.com/torstenreil LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/torstenreil Chapters 00:00:00 Drones, Tanks & the Future of Warfare 00:07:08 Why Torsten Founded Helsing 00:09:27 Founder Conviction & Betting on European Defense 00:19:19 Helsing's Mission: Protecting Democracies 00:23:38 Programs of Record & Winning the Eurofighter Contract 00:28:35 Building a Superhuman AI Fighter Pilot 00:36:14 Deterrence, Autonomous Weapons & the Morality of Defense 00:42:11 Mass Manufacturing, Software & the Future of Materiel 00:48:33 Airbase Vulnerability, Procurement & Scaling Strike Drones 00:52:46 Talent Density, Hiring & Performance Management 00:59:44 How Torsten Hires Exceptional People 01:05:27 Helsing's Culture: Whatever It Takes & Truth Is in the Field 01:07:38 Deploying in Ukraine & the Weight of Defense Technology 01:10:50 NaturalMotion, Gaming & Torsten's Path Into AI 01:18:33 Outsiders, First Principles & Ambitious North Stars 01:20:54 Why Commentary Is Worthless & Founders Should Build

David SenrahostTorsten Reilguest
Aug 26, 20261h 23mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Helsing’s Torsten Reil on autonomous warfare, deterrence, and talent density

  1. Torsten Reil argues that Ukraine demonstrates a decisive shift to drone-centric warfare where drones provide both pervasive surveillance and rapid strike, making tanks and traditional artillery increasingly obsolete and dangerous to operate.
  2. He claims large inventories of autonomous strike drones can create powerful deterrence by making conventional invasion forces (e.g., tanks) easy to locate and destroy quickly, changing the attacker’s cost-benefit calculus.
  3. Helsing was founded in 2021—when European defense tech was unpopular and often penalized by ESG-driven banking norms—to build a European counterpart to AI-first, mass-manufacturing-oriented defense companies and to “protect democracies.”
  4. The company pursued high-stakes government “programs of record” early, including winning the Eurofighter electronic-warfare upgrade with an AI approach to software-defined radars, and it is now building an autonomous fighter-jet capability validated in real flight tests.
  5. Reil emphasizes that future conflict will be “machines versus machines,” requiring resilient manufacturing (distributed “resilience factories”), software-defined hardware, and a company operating model centered on extreme talent density, fast hiring, and hard performance management.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Drones are ending the era of tanks and reshaping battlefield survivability.

Reil argues Ukraine shows that drones—first for ISR (finding targets) and then for strike—make large, easily detectable platforms like tanks and traditional artillery high-priority, short-survivability assets. He expects the battlefield to evolve toward autonomy and smaller, harder-to-target systems across air and ground domains.

Scaled drone warfare requires autonomy because humans won’t scale as operators.

Manual FPV-drone operations depend on scarce operator talent and are hard to scale for NATO; autonomy is needed for mass. Helsing focuses on GPS-denied navigation, terminal guidance, and coordination software so drones can operate under jamming with a human supervising ("in/on the loop").

Massed strike drones can provide credible deterrence by making invasion prohibitively costly.

His deterrence claim is that a large inventory of strike drones (able to navigate without GPS, find targets, and coordinate) makes conventional armored invasion economically and tactically unattractive. The point is less about winning battles and more about changing the adversary’s cost calculus so war doesn’t start.

In defense, going straight for programs of record is risky—but accelerates legitimacy and scale.

Helsing chose to pursue “programs of record” (official, budgeted government programs) early—high-risk but high-leverage—made possible by substantial early funding. Their example: winning the Eurofighter electronic-warfare upgrade using an AI/deep-learning approach for software-defined, “shape-shifting” radars, beating larger consortia (with Saab as partner).

Autonomous air combat is arriving faster than most institutions are prepared for.

Helsing trained a “superhuman” beyond-visual-range air-combat AI (Centaur) via reinforcement learning in a high-speed simulator, then validated by flying a real Saab Gripen where the AI took full control against a human-piloted aircraft. Reil extrapolates that autonomous swarms will make crewed fighter operations increasingly untenable and morally fraught.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

I think it's gonna be a battle of materiel. It's machines versus machines.

— Torsten Reil

The mission is to protect our democracies.

— Torsten Reil

It's just aggression that's missing, exactly. It's, it's, it's, um, strategic ambitions. You have to think about what you want to be, and you... and, and it needs to be big, and then you need to be truly aggressive.

— Torsten Reil

The underlying Goal has to be that you minimize the lives lost, uh, in general, and ideally you get it down to zero.

— Torsten Reil

I think commentary is entirely worthless and, um, uh, it has almost-- it has no positive contribution.

— Torsten Reil

Drone-dominated warfare in UkraineTanks and artillery obsolescenceFPV vs strike dronesAutonomy, jamming, GPS-denied navigationDeterrence via autonomous massPrograms of record and defense procurementAI electronic warfare for Eurofighter radars

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