No. 35 – 29 August 2024
An ETH spin-off successfully markets drone software. Initially it is dedicated entirely to civilian use, but that quickly changes when the US military industry expresses interest in the technology.
Split
Part of the drone software comes from Zurich: The Auterion subsidiary advertises in the USA with elaborate videos – and cooperates with the Ministry of Defense. Still: Auterion-GS.com
In June 2019, Lorenz Meier, visibly excited, took a selfie in a packed lecture hall in the main building of ETH Zurich. Over a hundred software developers had come to the first developer summit of the PX4 program, which allows drones to fly autonomously. For Meier, it was a return to the place where he had written the autopilot software a decade earlier.
The best minds are gathered here, Meier shouted into the hall – here, where Einstein studied and where so much drone research is now being carried out. “You,” he said, pointing to the audience, “are technical geniuses – and that is why your work influences entire organizations and industries.” He then praised the collaborative spirit of open source software such as PX4 and spoke about the latest developments at his company Auterion.
Gradual change
At the time, this company was still dedicated to purely civilian applications. Five years later, Auterion is supplying technology for kamikaze drones for combat use in Ukraine. This summer, co-founder and current CEO Lorenz Meier took part in the NATO-Ukraine Defense Innovators Forum in Krakow, Poland, where several teams tested a flight control system from Auterion – an application that Meier says was developed “quietly” and has “already proven itself in combat.” The ETH spin-off has now moved its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia.
Auterion’s path highlights a sore spot in the portrayal of Switzerland as the “Silicon Valley for Robotics” that has been officially propagated for years. Cheap drones that operate with artificial intelligence have radically changed warfare. The age of drone wars has dawned – and it seems increasingly implausible when the Swiss authorities and universities stubbornly cling to misleading rhetoric that emphasizes civilian success stories and downplays military applications.
Lorenz Meier
In a portrait that appeared this week in the “Tages-Anzeiger”, Lorenz Meier describes the Russian attack on Ukraine as an awakening moment. Former employees with whom WOZ was able to speak in recent weeks paint a more differentiated picture: “In the beginning, it was always said that we would not do anything militarily,” recalls Julian Oes, who worked as a software engineer at Auterion. “The change came gradually”: in 2019, an initial cooperation began with the American Defense Innovation Unit, a department of the US Department of Defense that promotes civilian technologies and adapts them for the US military. “The logic was: if we want to have an impact, then we have to do dual-use,” says Oes – that is, products that can be used both civilian and military. Consequently, the company founded a US branch and hired David Sharpin, a manager with good connections to US government agencies. Lorenz Meier continued to speak publicly only about commercial drones.
In 2020, the Swiss company pulled off a coup: its software was chosen by the Pentagon as the standard platform for small drones. Auterion also entered into a partnership with Munich-based drone manufacturer Quantum Systems and began supplying the American market. The drone, named Vector, soon had a laser pointer that can identify targets in addition to the normal cameras.
Adjustments to the Code of Ethics
“We do not develop armed systems and do not support technologies that are designed to harm people,” was still written in the company’s code of ethics at the time. It was about unarmed reconnaissance drones, it said. In October 2021, Auterion accepted further orders from the Pentagon, this time to make it easier for soldiers to control unmanned systems. Software developer Julian Oes left the company in February 2022. With the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Auterion shifted even more to the lucrative military sales market. “I can understand that Lorenz Meier did not want to watch from the sidelines, but wanted to be involved,” says Oes. “He took that very much to heart.”
Romeo Durscher, an industry insider, was on Auterion’s US management team at the time and was working on using the Swiss technology for peaceful purposes – against forest fires in California, for example. “We had difficulties gaining a foothold in the public safety sector at first,” he says. New sales markets were therefore needed. “In order to get financing, you want to penetrate a market that is worth millions and millions of US dollars,” says Durscher. The market for military applications is one such market. “It was actually only logical that Auterion would eventually find its way to the front in Eastern Europe.”
This path was ultimately short: In December 2023, Auterion’s code of ethics suddenly changed: “We ourselves will not develop armed technologies (such as warheads) or technologies whose primary purpose is to harm people.” In May 2024, Auterion moved its headquarters to the USA – near the Pentagon. In June, the company made its kamikaze drone program public, and in July any reference to weapons had disappeared from the code of ethics.
Auterion now states in its code of ethics that the company only works with governments that are democratically elected and allow a free press. “It is a moral obligation for us to supply our products to liberal democracies so that they can defend themselves,” says Lorenz Meier. He does not want to say which countries these are other than Ukraine and the USA.
However, it is difficult to keep such technologies away from authoritarian states or even terrorist groups, explains Andrew W. Reddie, who researches such risks at the University of Berkeley in California: “As soon as the technology exists, there is a risk that it will be adopted by all kinds of actors.” Export controls are difficult to implement for software.
“The reality is that the genie has unfortunately escaped from the bottle,” says Romeo Durscher. “Five years ago, the motto was that we were developing technology for peaceful purposes. Today, it is technology to protect democracy. It is a feel-good statement that, in my opinion, has very little substance.”
ETH no longer has any influence
Innosuisse, the federal government’s innovation agency, confirms the problem: “Goods originally developed purely for civilian use can, over time, be developed into military products, whether intentionally or unintentionally.” Companies are responsible for complying with the law, while the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) is responsible for export controls. Because Auterion now has its headquarters in the USA, Swiss export controls are unlikely to apply any more.
When asked, the Economic Affairs Department of SVP Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin said that Seco does not comment on individual companies. The extent to which provisions that go beyond export control and sanctions regulations apply to an ETH spin-off is within the university’s autonomy, according to the department. Vanessa Wood, ETH Vice President for Knowledge Transfer and Economic Relations, says that Auterion is “a private company”, even though the company was founded at ETH. “ETH has no influence whatsoever on their business decisions.”
While the Swiss authorities are squirming and politicians are refusing to clarify what role the neutral country should play in the age of drone wars, Auterion sees its future primarily in the military market. The huge investments in the war in Ukraine would help the industry to get out of the first tough financing phase, Lorenz Meier said recently at another PX4 developer summit. “What I see is a deployment on a new scale that will become the norm.”
This article was researched and implemented with the support of JournaFONDS. www.journafonds.ch
