Indra leads Spanish alliance to shield Europe's underwater infrastructure
The project will integrate sovereign AI, advanced sensors and unmanned vehicles to continuously monitor the water body, from surface to seabed, positioning the national industry as a benchmark in European security.
Published on 4 November 2026 - 22:29 GMT+1
In France, seven leading technology companies, with Indra at the helm together with SAES, UTEK, Aragon Photonics, Iqua Robotics, FYLA and Sateliot, joined forces this Wednesday in Paris to tackle one of the biggest vulnerabilities in international security: protecting the seabed.
Within the framework of the Euronaval trade fair, top industry executives signed a strategic agreement to develop the SIPRIS initiative, a project intended to give Spain technological sovereignty in the protection and continuous surveillance of cables and critical underwater infrastructure.
Indra will lead the coordination of the ecosystem and will take on the overall integration of the system through its SEADEF architecture and the sovereign artificial intelligence platform IndraMind, reinforced by the use of unmanned aerial drones.
For Ana Belén Buendía, the company’s naval director, SIPRIS responds to the "pressing need" to monitor the underwater environment in order to give Europe technological sovereignty. She stressed that the alliance between leading Spanish firms will make it possible to build a comprehensive solution and to position the national industry at the forefront of a sector that is gaining strategic importance.
Drones, fibre and satellites to secure the seabed
The other partners will deploy a multidisciplinary technological network to protect the marine environment. SAES will provide its sensors and sonar processing for threat detection, while autonomous control will be shared between UTEK, responsible for surface vehicles (USV), and Iqua Robotics, focused on unmanned submarines (UUV) for infrastructure inspection.
Anomaly detection through fibre optics will be handled by Aragon Photonics, supported by FYLA’s underwater optical communications and Sateliot’s satellite coverage.
This alliance lays the foundation stone for building a modular, scalable industrial ecosystem, designed to progressively integrate new stakeholders, technology centres and SMEs in the sector.
The project will immediately move into the phase of field tests before its launch on the market. With this step, Spain delivers a powerful statement in the defence industry and joins the small club of powers capable of protecting their own infrastructure under the sea.
