NestAI launches military AI to break Europe's reliance on US tech
A Finnish startup has released the first European foundation models built specifically for battlefield drones, offering the continent an alternative to US providers just as Washington restricts critical AI exports.
NestAI, founded by Peter Sarlin in 2025, has introduced its first artificial intelligence models tailored for military applications. The systems are designed to operate unmanned drone fleets and orchestrate entire combat missions through a platform called NestOS. The release directly targets Europe's dependence on foreign technology for critical defence infrastructure.
The launch follows a recent US government order suspending Anthropic's export of its most advanced models. Sarlin argues these events underline the strategic necessity for Europe to own its military AI. “There’s been significant concern about owning and controlling the model layer in defence,” Sarlin says, “and this is basically a solution to that.”
Rather than competing with general-purpose models from companies like OpenAI, NestAI focuses strictly on domain-specific tasks. The technology trains on synthetic and real-world data to help drones navigate environments that change unpredictably during combat. “If your adversary aggressively bombed the battlefield, for example, the maps you thought you could use for autonomy aren’t useful anymore,” Sarlin says.
Running these models on affordable, remote hardware requires significant computing compression. NestAI is addressing this through a partnership with Qutwo, a quantum startup Sarlin also co-founded, which simulates quantum computing on GPUs to shrink models without losing performance. “It allows you to run them on the edge,” Sarlin says, “which is ultimately the key challenge in pushing capable AI models to affordable hardware.”
The company is already running pilot programmes with the Finnish and Estonian armed forces. This rapid deployment is aimed at matching the "war-time capability" demanded by modern conflicts, where adaptation speeds must mirror those seen in Ukraine. Russian air attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets surged from roughly 13,300 in 2024 to around 56,700 in 2025, driven heavily by increased drone usage.
To support its development, NestAI has secured €100 million from Nokia and Finnish state investment firm Tesi. The 200-person company trains its models using the LUMI supercomputer in Finland and leverages a compute partnership with AMD. Sarlin previously founded the AI lab Silo, which AMD acquired in 2024 in what was then Europe's highest-value AI acquisition.
