Collaboration for Secure Software-Defined Defence

HENSOLDT and ST Engineering’s Cybersecurity business have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on defence and cybersecurity capabilities. The partnership focuses on integrating HENSOLDT’s MDOcore software suite with ST Engineering’s cross-domain product portfolio to develop secure, cloud-ready, and sovereign Software-Defined Defence solutions.

Context of the Cooperation
Modern military operations are transitioning away from isolated individual platforms toward a highly dynamic interconnection of systems across multiple domains, data spaces, and software architectures. This shift requires networking weapon systems and sensors on the battlefield, consolidating highly sensitive military data from disparate systems, and performing complex data fusion analyses.

Managing unstructured and distributed sensor big data while maintaining strict data isolation and protection across security domains presents significant technical and security challenges. To address these operational complexities, cooperation was established to combine HENSOLDT's data management software with ST Engineering's hardware-enforced cybersecurity frameworks. This collaborative approach provides the necessary integration scale and complementary expertise to build secure, resilient defence networks capable of moving sensitive information safely across operational environments.

Technical Solution and Responsibilities
The joint technical solution relies on the integration of HENSOLDT’s MDOcore data management software suite with ST Engineering’s hardware-enforced cross-domain security products. Responsibilities are divided between the partners to merge data analytics with advanced network protection:

At a system level, MDOcore functions by orchestrating data across a distributed architecture, spanning from the military edge at the sensor or weapon system level, through battlefield fog data centres, up to secure multi-cloud data hubs. The system applies semantic technologies and artificial intelligence-supported data analysis to automatically identify patterns and anomalies within heterogeneous and distributed databases. By incorporating ST Engineering’s cross-domain technologies, the combined architecture enables secure data fusion and multi-domain integration, allowing operators to orchestrate operational effects while protecting military networks against cyber threats.

Deployment or Implementation
The implementation strategy focuses on providing a scalable and flexible infrastructure that adapts to sovereign customer requirements. The integrated solution is engineered to support multiple deployment models depending on operational constraints.

Specifically, the software-defined architecture can be operated both as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application hosted within a security-certified cloud environment, or as dedicated on-premises installations directly at the customer's site. This phased approach allows the system to integrate with existing infrastructure at the military edge while expanding HENSOLDT's technical footprint and secure data-sharing presence in Singapore and the wider Asian market.

Edited by Romila DSilva, Induportals Editor, with AI assistance.