Saab has acquired UK drone and AI specialist BlueBear Systems, a leading provider of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems for complex defence and security applications.

BlueBear employs 65 employees at its site outside Bedford, England and had a turnover of £8 million in 2022. The combination of Saab’s world-leading products, services, and solutions, and BlueBear’s experience as an agile integrator of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems will be a powerful driver of Saab’s future capabilities.

Within Saab, BlueBear will be a centre for Rapid Concept Development providing expertise and scaling-up innovation.  “For BlueBear this is an important step in our journey as we now move forward as part of Saab," says Dr Yoge Patel, CEO of BlueBear.

"We see many enhanced opportunities around naval, air and land autonomy, payload integration, next generation command and control, AI-enabled defence clouds as well as next-generation platforms."

BlueBear will contribute to Saab’s existing activities worldwide and Saab will benefit from BlueBear’s expertise in autonomy and swarming, as well as command and control systems.

As emerging and disruptive technologies such as AI, machine learning and autonomous systems have the potential to reshape entire industries, Saab says AI will enable it to further improve system capabilities and increase efficiency across its product portfolio.

“This acquisition is another step in support of our international growth strategy as we seek to ensure Saab is well positioned in key markets and to sustain our competitive advantage,” says Micael Johansson, President and CEO of Saab. “BlueBear, as a world-leading provider of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems for complex defence and security applications, is a good fit with our approach of leveraging emerging technologies in the fields of autonomous systems and AI.”