Europe’s air defense gap

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.Chapters00:00 — Introducing Hadrien Canter and Alta Ares00:47 — 2022 in Ukraine, and how Europe lost air superiority03:23 — The Series A and the Airbus partnership05:13 — The data loop, edge AI, and the three phases of a mission08:22 — What no simulation can reproduce10:09 — Hiring for the mission; defense as the precondition for peace12:36 — Open research questions and the human in the loop14:22 — How the adversary uses AI: evasive Shaheds, drone mesh, China17:27 — Two interceptors, and why quantity is the quality20:50 — Iron Dome math, budgets, and peace-time vs war-time23:41 — Q&A: keeping pace with a fast-changing front26:31 — Q&A: talent and the shift toward European defense29:30 — Q&A: re-arming without permanent war32:56 — Freedom doesn't come for free