(Art direction:Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli
Image: The White House, Public Domain)
The Golden Dome rising
The Golden Dome, heavily promoted by the Trump administration, is a technostrategy/industrial strategy that is already mobilizing major players in the space and AI sectors, including SpaceX, Starlink, Palantir, and Anduril. In this new landscape shaping the relationship between industry and defense in the US, French and European companies can play a vital role, while integrating into a rapidly expanding market, by taking into account the key trends summarized below .
On January 21, 2026, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Donald Trump particularly emphasized the importance of Greenland for the strategic “Golden Dome” project, announced in the early days of his presidency in 2025.
Indeed, the geography of the American and Eurasian continents dictates that the trajectory of any potential intercontinental ballistic missile strikes would take them over the North Pole. Aerospace surveillance of the Arctic is therefore a strategic imperative for countering Russian and Chinese technological and industrial developments, particularly in the field of hypersonic missiles, which necessitate significant adjustments to US defense.1Clayton Swope, The Golden Dome as a Service, CSIS, June 5, 2025.
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This strategic renewal takes the form of the “Golden Dome” program. This space defense program is based on protecting US territory with a network of observation, early warning, and combat satellites. This first layer is complemented by a second technological layer, composed of anti-missile and laser weapon systems that will be pre-positioned in low Earth orbit from US territory to the Arctic.
The Golden Dome is thus an architecture of integrated systems within a common AI architecture, capable of coordinating and communicating with each other and with ground-based military and political command centers.
This program, announced on January 27, 2025, one week after President Trump’s inauguration, is a central element of the Trump administration’s policy. Indeed, it lies at the intersection of strategic and military challenges, technological and industrial challenges linked in particular to American policy, and the challenges of integrating AI into the space and military sectors, and the installation of data centers in orbit.
On June 15, 2025, the Pentagon launched its first call for tenders, amounting to $151 billion, over 10 years. In two rounds, on December 2 and 18, 2025, 2,440 companies were selected. SHIELD Award Contract Guide : Everything you Need to Know in January 2026
In other words, the “Golden Dome” is both a program for aggregating and accelerating industrial and AI challenges, and thus for merging the aerospace industry and Silicon Valley.
Beginning the deployment of the Golden Dome as early as 2027/28 aims to:
- Accelerate the integration of AI (“smartening”) within the Pentagon;
- Strengthen the development of the American defense industry;
- Strengthen the American space industry;
- Converge all the above trends.
All within the framework of “reempowering” the American industry in the face of its competitors, particularly China, by installing AI/defense infrastructure in orbit, so as to impose US preeminence before the Chinese can do the same.
- The Golden Dome: From National Security to Reindustrialization
- Silicon Valley: Political and Infrastructural Support for the Golden Dome
- Geography of Opportunities
1. The Golden Dome: From National Security to Reindustrialization
Context
The “Golden Dome” project is part of the history of the race for a missile defense shield, officially launched by President Reagan in 1983, and of the adaptation of the American defense establishment to the deployment of hypersonic missiles by Russia, China, and Iran, while North Korea is now equipped with ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons. It is worth noting that hypersonic missiles incorporate significant AI capabilities.
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The Golden Dome also establishes strong continuities between the United States National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the American space strategy.
This entire system is also one of the driving forces behind the Trump administration’s reindustrialization policy. Space, a new defense infrastructure
Major names in the aerospace and defense industrial and technological base have been selected, such as Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, L3 Harris, and Boeing. It should be noted that the British company BAE Systems has also been selected.
Enter New Space
But space has entered a new phase of conversion into a defense infrastructure. This is particularly true of low Earth orbit, where private satellite constellations, such as those of SpaceX/Elon Musk’s Starlink, or satellite observation systems like those of Maxar are deployed.
This integration of the “New Space” sector —an ecosystem of private companies involved in the space industry that have managed to make their activities profitable— revealed its strategic dimension in 2022 during the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Starlink, for example, maintains Ukraine’s internet connection, including that of the military, while Maxar’s space-based observation capabilities allow for monitoring developments in the theater of operations.
Finally, the Starlink constellation dedicated to Ukraine also provides the infrastructure for the transmission of data streams generated by drones and their analysis by the AI systems of the Pentagon and Palantir, the private data aggregation company specializing in security issues.
It is this intertwining of satellite, cyberspace, and military capabilities that has enabled the rise of the combat drone sector, and thus the development of new industries, such as Anduril, which has become the American giant in combat drones.
New Competitors
It is in the context of the war in Ukraine and the new arms race, which now pits the US against China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. As it happens, Russia and China’s industrial and military lead in hypersonic missiles.
The distinctive feature of these missiles, in addition to their speed, is their ability to alter their trajectory while guaranteeing impact on their initial target. Several cases have been identified both in Ukraine following Russian strikes and in Israel following Iranian strikes, despite the excellence of Israel’s multi-layered air defense system, known as “Iron Dome/David’s Sling/Arrow.”
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Thus, the “Golden Dome” program, announced for 2025, is both a very large-scale transposition and a transformation of the “Iron Dome” missile defense concept.
The launch of the Golden Dome thus mobilizes both industries directly linked to space and defense, as well as their subcontracting chains, across all related fields. The Golden Dome is therefore both a defense project and an industrial project on a US scale.
The evolution of the initial funding for the Golden Dome, which increased from $151 billion over 10 years in January 2026, indicates the priority given to this program by the Trump administration.
The space war has begun
This new age of aerospace is also reflected in the resurgence of the missile industry. Since 2022, stockpiles of various missile categories have suffered significant depletion due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, support for Israel in the Gaza War, the war in the Red Sea against the Houthis, the war in Lebanon, and the war against Iran. Thus, in 2020, the stockpile of Tomahawk missiles was 9,000 units, and has shrunk to 4,000 by 2025.
Faced with this attrition, the US government is massively increasing missile orders from the aerospace industry. For example, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are expected to produce 740 Patriot (PAC-2/PAC-3) anti-aircraft missiles by 2025—the same class as those used in Ukraine and Israel. This production rate is double the current level: before 2023, only 350 units of this model were produced annually. In both 2023 and 2024, production reached 500.
This acceleration is also evident elsewhere. Thus, the US Army, responsible for deploying Patriot missile battalions, has secured a fourfold increase in overall production, which, by 2026, will rise from 3,000 to 13,000 units per year—if Boeing and Lockheed Martin have the industrial capacity.2Meghann Myers, Army aims to quadruple Patriot missile procurement, Defense One, July 8, 2025.
Finally, the “12-Day War” between Iran, Israel, and the United States in June 2025 was quite literally the first space war.
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Almost all the clashes involved salvos of Iranian ballistic and hypersonic missiles against those of Israel’s high-, medium-, and low-altitude air defense system, which was operating at full capacity. Furthermore, a single night of US air defense use incurs enormous costs, at least $1 billion per night.
The New Age of Lasers
Faced with this technological and financial reality, the American system is responding by promoting laser weapon systems within the Golden Dome architecture.
Directed-energy weapon systems are now a largely mature technology. When the American industrial base can mass-produce them, these weapon systems can be deployed from the tactical level—in combat situations—with weapon systems ranging from 10 to 30 kW, to the strategic level, such as missile defense, with a power of 300 kW.
The New Technological and Industrial Age
In other words, the Golden Dome is a gigantic scientific, technological, and industrial attractor for all players linked to the aerospace industry ecosystem and, therefore, in particular, for the highly complex electronic components needed for the various layers of equipment. This results in the possibility of rapid evolution of the associated markets, which the industries involved must anticipate.
This forward-looking effort is all the more important given that the Golden Dome program relies on and reinforces the militarization of AI.
2. Silicon Valley: Political and Infrastructural Support for the Golden Dome
During his speech in Davos on January 20, 2026, President Trump emphasized Greenland’s importance to the Golden Dome. This strategic interest in Greenland runs throughout the entire sequence of events that began with President Trump’s re-election in November 2025, highlighting the influence of major Silicon Valley companies.
Indeed, due to its geography, Greenland will play a strategic role in the deployment of the Golden Dome over the North Pole.
Greenland and the Silicon Valley
Thus, on December 22, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump, who would be inaugurated 28 days later, announced that Ken Howery would be appointed ambassador to Denmark. This choice is particularly significant in demonstrating the joint involvement of the Trump administration and Silicon Valley in strengthening Greenland’s integration into the American strategic system.
Ken Howery is, in fact, one of the founding members of PayPal, along with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. He then became one of the co-founders of Founders Fund, the largest venture capital fund in Silicon Valley, led by Peter Thiel, himself the founder of Palantir, the “Google of spies,” and a high-level investor in Facebook/Meta and Google.
The Founders Fund also helped the young J.D. Vance create his own venture capital fund in Silicon Valley before he became Vice President under President Trump. Ken Howery’s appointment as ambassador to Denmark is therefore a signal of Greenland’s major geostrategic importance for the combined strategies of the US federal government and American AI and space giants, or hybrid players like Elon Musk’s SpaceX/xAI.
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This company revolutionized space transportation with SpaceX and its reusable rockets, and satellite operations with Starlink, while simultaneously merging space and AI through its company xAI with SpaceX.
The same is true for Starshield, Starlink’s subsidiary dedicated to military communication satellite constellations, already operated by the American and Italian militaries, among others.
This merger will be the subject of a historic IPO, likely in June 2026, expected to reach nearly $1.5 trillion.
Space X, Palantir and Anduril in space
But other giants in civilian-military AI and drones are also included in the Golden Dome program. This is notably the case for Palantir, which has proven itself as an aggregator of Data for military and operational purposes during the war in Ukraine.
Anduril, the autonomous combat drone giant, is also on the list of contractors. Given that Anduril partners with, among others, Palantir and OpenAI to enhance the autonomy of combat drones and swarms, as well as their communication and cyber warfare capabilities, Anduril’s participation is significant both in itself and as a technological hub for AI integration at the Golden Dome.
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In April 2025, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril visited the Pentagon to present how they would build nearly 1,000 satellites and launch them into orbit to provide observation, communication, and early warning capabilities, while also preparing a separate fleet of combat satellites equipped with missiles and lasers to intercept and destroy enemy missiles and drones.3Lauren C. Watson and Ben Watson, The D Brief: Space Force’s new war plan; Musk, Palantir, Anduril eye ‘Golden Dome’ contracts; DOD’s race for small reactors; And a bit more, Defense One, April 17, 2025.
Renewing the US industrial base
In parallel, the Pentagon is forging a massive partnership with Grok, Elon Musk’s generative AI developed by xAI, to optimize all administrative and operational processes within the Department of War.
The data processing, autonomy, and speed requirements generated by the various layers of the Golden Dome will be so significant that AI will be present at all levels, as well as an essential tool for integrating and coordinating the different components.
In other words, the Golden Dome program is profoundly altering the American aerospace/AI industrial landscape across all its components.
The companies involved will therefore need to anticipate this evolution in order to position themselves early and benefit from it. This is particularly true for companies specializing in computing capabilities and connectivity.
3. Geography of Opportunities
Hyperscaling the US industry
The Golden Dome should therefore be considered a “hyperscaler” for generating industrial and financial opportunities. But these will be distributed according to both industrial and political geography.
For French and European companies present in the United States and established in the sectors affected by the Golden Dome, including its connectivity, this geography extends from Paris to the American territory.
It must be used to gather upstream the information that companies will need to be particularly competitive in the markets amplified by the Golden Dome.
Political Geography of US industrial opportunities
- France (Paris)
- U.S. Embassy;
- French American Foundation
- United States:
- Washington D.C. / Alexandria:
- French Embassy in Washington;
- Missile Defense Agency-Department of War / Pentagon;
- House Defense Committee;
- Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin;
- Lobbying firms;
- Specialized think tanks;
- Ohio
- Columbus, Anduril Industrial Park;
- California
- SpaceX;
- GAFAM;
- Arizona (Phoenix)
- TSMC (ultra-high-performance semiconductors. One factory already built, three more planned by 2030, $500 billion investment from Taiwan in Arizona);
- Softbank (Japanese innovation investment giant. Announced $1 trillion in investments in AI industrial parks by 2030);
- Representatives from Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Google, PayPal, Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft, and Meta, which are building their new data centers in Arizona.
- Washington D.C. / Alexandria:
Including these players, involved in the Golden Dome and the expansion of the AI sector in aerospace, will allow French digital and connectivity companies to fully benefit from the effects related to anticipating the quantity and nature of orders triggered by the financing and implementation of the Golden Dome.
Notes
- 1Clayton Swope, The Golden Dome as a Service, CSIS, June 5, 2025. ↩︎
- 2Meghann Myers, Army aims to quadruple Patriot missile procurement, Defense One, July 8, 2025. ↩︎
- 3Lauren C. Watson and Ben Watson, The D Brief: Space Force’s new war plan; Musk, Palantir, Anduril eye ‘Golden Dome’ contracts; DOD’s race for small reactors; And a bit more, Defense One, April 17, 2025. ↩︎
