Stratospheric balloons and AI: towards a new electromagnetic intelligence architecture – PREVAIL: why embedded AI is becoming a matter of hardware sovereignty
Safran Electronics & Defense and Hemeria have signed an agreement to design electromagnetic intelligence and electronic warfare solutions for deployment on stratospheric balloons. The concept involves installing sensors on a very-high-altitude platform—supplied by Hemeria—and then processing the data using artificial intelligence models developed by Safran.AI. The goal is to detect, identify, and analyze land, air, and maritime radars and communications in contested environments.
Generative AI has highlighted our reliance on massive computing infrastructures. However, another technological battle is playing out more quietly: the battle for embedded AI—that is, the ability to execute artificial intelligence functions directly at the source, close to the sensor, component, connected device, or critical system. PREVAIL is part of this very dynamic. Coordinated by CEA-Leti and driven in partnership with Fraunhofer, imec, and VTT, this European project aims to provide European stakeholders with a testing and experimentation infrastructure for the next generation of Edge AI chips.
The technological significance is immense. Use cases for embedded AI—such as autonomous vehicles, industrial robotics, medical sensors, connected devices, defense, and industrial monitoring—impose constraints that differ from those of cloud computing. It is necessary to reduce latency, limit energy consumption, ensure data privacy, and maintain robust performance in constrained environments. This entails rethinking electronic architectures themselves, rather than simply optimizing existing software.
The PREVAIL platform relies on a 300mm infrastructure—an environment closely aligned with the industrial standards of advanced microelectronics. It enables the prototyping and testing of highly mature hardware components by combining several technological fields: non-volatile memory to bring storage and computing closer together, 3D integration to increase architectural density, heterogeneous packaging to assemble diverse functions, and radiofrequency or photonic connectivity to meet high-speed inter-component communication needs.
A key feature is shared access to over 50 pieces of strategic equipment installed at leading European technology research organizations. This pooling of resources is essential for SMEs, startups, and laboratories that lack the means to invest in cleanroom infrastructure on their own. PREVAIL thus acts as an accelerator for technology maturation, allowing technology developers to test their concepts against real-world constraints regarding manufacturing, integration, testing, and reliability.
For R&D departments, this development highlights a significant shift: AI innovation is no longer limited to models alone. It also depends on the ability to design hardware architectures tailored to specific use cases. A high-performance Edge AI chip is not merely an accelerator; it represents a trade-off between computing, memory, energy, security, communication, and physical integration. This is precisely the type of technological domain where a structured analysis of patents, publications, and collaborative projects becomes strategic for identifying the right investment paths.
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