When Emirati technology and defence group EDGE launched EDGE Europe, a fully European commercial enterprise headquartered in Paris, on the eve of the city’s Eurosatory 2026 defence exhibition, it was a clear indicator of how the company has transformed from its initial strategy.

At the show on 15 June Warsight sat down for a conversation with Miles Chambers, EDGE’s senior vice president for international business, to discuss that transformation.

Established in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on 5 November 2019, EDGE Group’s initial strategy was to bring together numerous entities within the Emirates to produce a conglomerate that could operate at scale and import defence intellectual property (IP) into the UAE.

“We consolidated more than 35 entities within the UAE, which was the starting point of giving EDGE the scale, particularly in a global sense, and that, coupled together with an aggressive M&A [mergers and acquisitions] programme and strategy, saw us expanding not just in terms of export sales, but very much in terms of establishing a footprint in other markets,” Chambers explained.

Major acquisitions by EDGE have included major European unmanned systems specialists, including Estonian unmanned ground vehicle specialist Milrem Robotics and Swiss rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) producer Anavia.

“Through those we’ve seen direct investment by EDGE into those companies,” said Chambers, “so this is no longer looking at what IP we can relocate to the UAE and industrialise, but actually helping invest in these companies and help them grow,  [for example] brand new production facilities established in Tallinn to support the growth in Milrem’s manufacturing and similarly in Navier in Switzerland brand new facilities for production and R&D.”

Chambers noted that the human capital in both Milrem and Anavia has also increased, stating that EDGE’s strategy constitutes “a real showcase of investment going in to grow and scale businesses in Europe”.

He also pointed out that EDGE has seen its export business go from USD 50 million (EUR 44 million) back in 2019 to representing over 45% of its order intake in 2025 with USD 8 billion in order intake.

“Today the export business represents a significant part of EDGE’s growth. We’ve expanded the business globally, with offices in Latin America, including in Brazil,” he noted, “and I think with the announcement us opening an office here in Paris, together with the plan for establishing an R&D facility in the Bordeaux region, it’s building on the existing investments that we’ve made in Europe to expand that industrial base, building in Europe for Europe.”

Chambers added that just as important for EDGE and the UAE as for other countries is “the concept of strategic independence and domestic resilience in terms of defence manufacturing”, adding that “being able to rapidly respond is very much recognised by the Emirates and by EDGE”.

Looking to the future, Chambers said, “I believe one of the really key benefits that we bring is this agile mindset. We come out of very rapidly growing and expanding in the UAE, integrating Industry 4.0 in technology into all avenues of our design, development and manufacturing process, and this is what we hear a lot of in Europe today: the agility, the lean manufacturing, being able to be agile in the manufacturing process, to be able to ramp up, scale up, in the time of need, and that’s very much been part of EDGE’s DNA since its formation. So I believe that those lessons learned, that we have already experienced within the Emirates, we will bring that to the industrial footprint that we’re looking to grow and expand in Europe.”

Asked by Warsight which particular domains the company will focus in on future, Chambers replied, “EDGE, since its formation, has always focused on advanced technology, autonomous systems, electronic warfare, precision-guided munitions. Those are certainly the same domains that we’re looking at moving forward in, in terms of the industrial expansion across Europe. It’s our broad portfolio of autonomous systems, our UAVs, our loitering munitions and long-range effectors, our electronic warfare capabilities, our counter-drone capabilities, our capability in anti-jamming – all of which are well proven and have been used very successfully, particularly in the recent conflict [with Iran], in terms of securing the UAE from an air defence point of view.”

It is these capabilities, said Chambers, that EDGE is looking to tailer for the European context. He added, however, “This is not about us coming as competition, but coming as collaboration; this is evident through existing partnerships that we’ve established, with joint ventures with companies like Indra in Spain and Fincantieri [in Italy, and we’re] working to finalise our joint venture with Escribano [in Spain]. So as we grow and expand that footprint, this is really about industrial collaboration across all areas, very much about establishing that physical footprint, bringing some of those capabilities to market, but making sure that that works together with the existing ecosystem throughout the supply chain as a true European product.”