Helsing’s first UK Resilience Factory announced

Helsing is set to establish its first Resilience Factory in the UK, as the company invests to double its British workforce, according to an 8th July announcement from the British government. The factory will be built in Plymouth and represents the acceleration of Helsing’s pledge to invest £350 million in artificial intelligence (AI) in the UK under the Trinity House Agreement.

The Resilience Factory will be set up to build Helsing’s recently announced SG-1 Fathom, an autonomous underwater surveillance system, which is designed to provide wide-area persistent detection of submarines and other sub-surface threats. The company announced a partnership with Blue Ocean Marine Tech Systems, Ocean Infinity, and QinetiQ in April 2025 with the goal of getting autonomous systems into service with the Royal Navy by the end of the year. 

The SG-1 Fathom and the Lura AI-enabled software that supports it is likely aimed at Project CABOT, a British project to procure a contractor-owned and operated sub-surface surveillance capability to protect and monitor the Greenland, Iceland, UK gap. Helsing’s Resilience Factory is expected to build autonomous systems for the Royal Navy and the UK’s allies, the government announcement states. 

The Resilience Factory concept has been developed by Helsing to provide new defence manufacturing capabilities for NATO states. They are expected to use new manufacturing techniques to reduce the time taken to produce a drone down to a matter of hours, for instance. The resilience aspect comes from the concept of building dispersed factories that are quick to establish.

Helsing’s first Resilience Factory, RF-1, was established in Southern Germany and completed at the end of 2024. It is understood to be producing the HX-2 strike drones for both Ukraine and Germany and has capacity for 1,000 drones per month. No timeline is provided for the completion of the British Resilience Factory, but given the SG-1’s foundation in existing technology from Helsing’s partners, it is likely that it could be established within a matter of months. 

This should be welcomed as a concept. Russia’s strikes against Ukraine have targeted the country’s defence manufacturing infrastructure extensively, and succeeded in damaging a lot of it. And deliberately targeting NATO’s defence industry in the opening phases of a conflict should be expected. Many of those factories are quite well-known, within reach of Russian cruise missiles, and likely a difficult target to defend given Europe’s limited air defences. 

Company profile: The Defence and Economic Growth Taskforce

The UK has established a Defence and Economic Growth Taskforce, which was set the task of examining the best approach to maximise the societal value of the UK’s investment in defence. It included a range of members including financial institutions, government officials and industry. The Taskforce is led by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) with Oliver Wyman and co-chaired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Defence Secretary John Healey.

It has made several recommendations for the Labour government, which states it is acting upon the Taskforce’s findings. Some of those findings include the following: 

• Team UK: The “Team UK” strategy will ensure the UK’s global competitiveness in defence by driving innovation, creating jobs and prosperity nationwide, and reforming procurement to grow the UK defence sector, all in line with the Strategic Defence Review.
• Establishing a Defence SME Hub: This hub will offer support specifically designed for new businesses entering the defence market.
• Opening a Defence Exports Office: Create a dedicated office within the Ministry of Defence to handle and support defence exports.
• Developing Defence Growth Deals: Commit to creating defence growth deals across the UK, with funding to be allocated during the Spending Review.
• Dual use technology: The Taskforce also recommends prioritising investment in “dual use” technologies that can be used for both civil and military purposes in the UK. It is worth noting that dual use technologies tend to attract private capital more easily than pure defence companies as they can address much larger markets. 

Calibre comment

There are two things that spring to mind when considering the British government’s approach to defence: The first is that the social value of a capability appears to be a significant driving factor behind procurement. It is, for instance, reported to be the reason that Hanwha’s K9 howitzer was not selected under the Army’s Mobile Fires Platform in 2024. Not enough of the howitzer was to be built in the UK, despite it being a more mature and, in some opinions, better suited to the UK’s requirements than the RCH155 that was selected instead. This is potentially less an issue than the second consideration as the UK has a strong defence industry that can produce exquisite products. 

The second is the need for the government to follow through with the demand signals it is generating. The UK has led in calling for private capital to invest in the country’s defence industry, and the government even held a meeting with asset managers in 2023 in a bid to lower the barriers for investing in defence. The SDR and Defence and Economic Growth Taskforce have both doubled down on this messaging, and there are already signs that it is working. 

Helsing’s investment is clear, but there are many others like Arondite ($12.25 million seed), Applied Intuition ($63.6 million planned investment in the UK), and Tekever ($73 million series B and $500 million planned investment in UK). All of them are bringing very considerable levels of funding to the UK, which supports the recruitment and retention of highly skilled staff, as well as their continued professional development. 

That capital has been raised because companies and investment firms see the potential for growth in the UK. If contracts are not realised by the companies that are setting down roots and building teams, then the appeal of private investment will begin to decline, and this rich ecosystem of companies will eventually die. This means the MoD really will have to do things differently, spending more money with non-traditional defence companies and procuring new systems in ways that attract investors. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on 9th July, 2025. The lead image is taken from RF-1, Helsing’s Resilience Factory in Southern Germany. Credit: Helsing. This article was updated with a correction on the 9th July, 2025. It mistakenly said that Helsing’s factory would be in Portsmouth, when it will actually be in Plymouth.