Bucharest, March 20, 2026 – RBJ – According to a press release, the partnership aims for a significant production capacity, with an estimated target of up to 1,500 drones per month. This effort will integrate Orbotix’s cutting-edge technology, including the WASPER-1 and VIGIL-1 platforms, with Romaero S.A.’s industrial infrastructure. Orbotix will provide the system architecture, on-board software, autonomy algorithms and Artificial Intelligence integration.
State-owned company Romaero will ensure structural production, complex assembly and mechanical and electrical integration to NATO standards.
‘The partnership represents a model of good practice that should be implemented in many state-owned companies. The private sector needs such partnerships. The Romanian state needs a private environment that truly contributes to the national defense industry,’ said Adrian-Felician Cozma, vice president of the Chamber of Deputies and member of the Committee for Defense, Public Order and National Security, in a conference.
Bogdan Ochiană, CEO and co-founder of Orbotix Industries, emphasized that the start-up is ‘a company with Romanian DNA, owned 82.5% by Romanians, but also by German and American investors and with many partnerships in Ukraine and other countries.’
‘The war in Ukraine taught us that technology fundamentally changes the way modern conflicts are fought. Drones, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems have become decisive tools on the battlefield,’ explained Bogdan Ochiană, who added that Orbotix Industries has obtained, for the time being, a funding of approximately eight million euros.
‘The advanced technology developed by Orbotix, which refers to autonomous systems, on-board software, artificial intelligence algorithm and system architecture for modern drones, must be combined with a production capacity, which we, as a start-up, do not have. When orders appear, in three or six months we could deliver a thousand drones per month, which seems a lot, but it is extraordinarily little. There are Ukrainian companies that make 100,000 drones per month,’ said CEO Bogdan Ochiana.
The special administrator of Romaero S.A. (insolvent), Speranța Munteanu, stated that this company provides, within the partnership, an ‘active, fully certified, with engineers with the desire, with the knowledge to build industry’ industrial platform.
‘The future belongs to industrial ecosystems. We must bring local suppliers to these ecosystems, in addition to factories and industrial platforms. We need to have a real connection with universities, to bring in a part of research and to bring in students to do practice and have a specialization. (…) We need to be integrated into the European and Euro-Atlantic chains,’ the special administrator also said.
According to the signatories of the Memorandum of Understanding, the security architecture of NATO’s Eastern Flank is going through major challenges generated by Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and technological innovation has become the main asset for strengthening resilience capacities in such a complicated context.
‘This industrial alliance marks a decisive step towards consolidating Romania’s technological sovereignty through the development and domestic production of unmanned aerial systems (UAV) and solutions based on Artificial Intelligence. The global climate shows us every day that security is no longer optional, but vital. And the partnership between Orbotix, a European leader in autonomous systems, and Romaero, a traditional pillar of the Romanian aerospace industry, aims to transform Romania from a simple technology consumer into a regional hub for defense production and innovation,’ the parties to the agreement unanimously support.
The collaboration allows both entities to maintain their operational autonomy, while synchronizing their forces to respond to the critical requirements of the Ministry of National Defense and the European Union’s initiatives in the field of security and defense.
The collaboration is not limited to national borders, already exploring the expansion of production in strategic markets such as Poland, Ukraine and Spain through the Orbotix network and footprint, thus strengthening Romania’s role as a security provider in the region and at European level.
The partnership has the potential to generate structural economic effects, including the development of local industrial capacities; the creation of specialized jobs; the transfer of know-how and advanced technologies; stimulating investments in industrial infrastructure and emerging technologies.
