Accenture’s survey of 100 industry executives puts AI at top of transformative technologies for defence businesses
Strategy, consulting and digital specialists Accenture say the defence industry is at the start of a data revolution.
Speaking at the industry showcase, DSEI, Adrian Spragg, Aerospace and defence industry leader for Accenture said: “There is a lot happening in this world. We look around us and we see a showcase of innovation. We see a lot of autonomous products, cloud based services, increasing use of technology such as artificial intelligence.
“We are looking beyond the surface, beyond what’s visible today to how aerospace and defence companies can and are increasingly looking to reinvent how they go about their business. That’s really about capitalising on the opportunities around artificial intelligence, for example.”
Industry is at “start of AI revolution”
Spragg added that a recent industry survey had supported the consulting firm’s view that AI would be one of the most transformative new technologies. He said: “We recently surveyed over 100 executives in the industry and they agree with us that AI will be probably the most significant technology development over the coming years: whether that’s in the products to enhance the war fighting potential; whether its helping in the predictive analytics to help drive maintenance; performance and costs; whether its in collaborative design and smart manufacturing of new products such as Tempest, for example, that we have seen today.”
“Back into the industry space, it’s in terms of automating businesses to release the workforce to focus on value adding tasks. We are very much at the start of the AI revolution, the data driven revolution.”
New technology will extend industry “ecosystem”
Spragg added that increasing digitisation of the industry and technologies such as blockchain would “extend the ecosytem” enabling smaller manufacturers and countries to develop their own industry and also through the creation of smart factories.
He warned the new technology would also bring new challenges such a need for building cyber resilience into systems and implementing robust cyber security measures. Spragg added that the new ecosystem would result in new partnerships and collaborative opportunities such as Tempest.
