This Week in Dual-Use
NEWS
In LLM news, a Chinese-made AI model called DeepSeek shot to the top of app store downloads, stunning investors and sinking some tech stocks.
There has, quite rightly, been a huge reaction to what DeepSeek has achieved with worse tech and less money than Western competitors. China’s AI research is a black box so it’s unclear whether all the claims are true. Concerns are already growing over a potential breach of OpenAI’s IP.
That doesn’t really matter.
What does matter is that the implications go far beyond AI. Increasingly people in the West are downloading apps which are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. For us it’s an alternative to ChatGPT. For China it’s a dual-use technology. We just don’t realise it’s dual-use.
The real story is that China doesn’t just compete on AI - it uses these products to shape the narrative. If DeepSeek or its successors gain mass adoption, Beijing won’t need to borrow Western AI models - they’ll be training their own on our data instead.
In Baltic Sea news, the Swedish coastguard boarded a ship on Monday after a(nother) fibre-optic cable linking Sweden to Latvia was damaged.
Two weeks ago NATO launched Operation Baltic Sentry and three weeks ago the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) launched an AI-powered tracking operation. To no avail.
These incidents have hit the news but what hasn’t been discussed much is that they make up a broader grey zonewarfare campaign that Russia is carrying out across Europe. Arson attacks, parcel bombs, assassination plots and more.
These operations are carefully calculated not to reach the threshold of formal escalation. But collectively they amount to a sustained campaign of destabilisation, exploiting the gap between military response and law enforcement.
The recent Baltic Sea incidents finally seem to have triggered a response. It will be interesting to see what tactics and dual-use technologies will be deployed in the coming months.
In wingman news, the British Army is exploring the integration of uncrewed “mules” into its new AH-64E Apache helicopters to enhance operational efficiency.
This follows Lockheed Martin’s development of a wingman drone which I covered back in November. As I said then, the wingman concept looks like it will be a key component of next generation fighter jets. Perhaps also next generation helicopters.
Rather than heralding the extinction of the human pilot, I see this as a radical augmentation of current air capability. Wingmen could act as teammates in a dogfight, carry additional munitions or even serve as air-to-air refuelling platforms.
They will enable a human pilot to do more, rather than less.
FUNDRAISING
ElevenLabs, a US-based developer of voice generation software, raised a $250m Series C round.
Alice & Bob, a France-based developer of quantum computers, raiseda $104m Series B round.
AST SpaceMobile, a US-based developer of direct-to-smartphone satellite constellations, raised a $400m convertible debt round.
Spaceium, a US-based developer of unmanned service stations in space and Y-Combinator graduate, raised a $6.3m Seed round.
ZuriQ, a Swizterland-based developer of trapped-ion quantum computers, raised a $4.2m Seed round.
Vizgard, a UK-based developer of AI-powered defence and public safety systems, raised a £1.5m Seed round.
General Aeronautics, an India-based developer of drone technology, raised a Series A+ round. The amount was not disclosed.
QDNL, a Netherlands-based venture capital fund focused on quantum technologies, has raised €25m at first-close.