Theses›Defence & security

Defence & security

What armies, governments and security teams buy.

  • 14 theses
  • 2 bull
  • 10 bear
Early81011913Closing4511214Shut6723 Early81011913Closing4511214Shut6723
Fig. 1Where the bets sit: windows from Early to Shut, left to right; each plot's area is the market's size by 2035. A double outline is a bull call, a single one a bear call, a dashed one a thesis with no call written yet. Washed: Agentic AI security, the largest bull call. 1 not yet sized are drawn small.
The marketsnumbered as the plan
  1. 1Counter-UAS effectors
    • Bear
    • Closing
    • $10B
    • Support 85
     Counter-UAS effectors: the drone-defence money is real and dated, but the integrated-effector socket is being handed to the primes before a startup can reach it
  2. 2Quantum random number generation
    • Bear
    • Shut
    • $274M
    • Support 85
     On-silicon quantum random number generation (QRNG) — true, non-deterministic entropy from a quantum physical process (avalanche/tunnelling noise in CMOS-compatible silicon) — plus the wider quantum-security IC layer is a real, policy-pulled market.
  3. 3QKD
    • Bear
    • Shut
    • $230M
    • Support 85
     The physics works and China built a national quantum network, but Western security agencies tell every buyer QKD most wants not to buy it.
  4. 4Confidential computing
    • Closing
    • $196B
    • Support 82
     By 2030, ≥85% of new SoCs from leading vendors (Apple, Arm-based, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, MediaTek, Qualcomm) ship with hardware TEE / confidential computing enclaves integrated.
  5. 5Orbital defence
    • Bear
    • Closing
    • $16B
    • Support 80
     Orbital defence: Golden Dome turns space into a munitions programme, and it is the demand engine under every space component page (watch)
  6. 6FHE acceleration silicon
    • Bear
    • Shut
    • $6.8B
    • Support 80
     Fully homomorphic encryption is moving from ~10,000x-slower-than-plaintext toward practical via dedicated silicon (FHE accelerators), the one confidential-computing primitive that needs new chips rather than incumbent-owned TEEs.
  7. 7Space domain awareness
    • Bear
    • Shut
    • $4.6B
    • Support 80
     Space domain awareness: a small, slow, government-shaped market carrying billion-dollar private valuations (watch)
  8. 8Hardware memory safety
    • Bear
    • Early
    • $380B
    • Support 77
     Hardware-enforced memory safety, capability silicon in the CHERI / CHERIoT lineage, becomes a required layer for security-critical and legacy-C/C++ compute as memory-safety mandates bite.
  9. 9High-speed data converters
    • Bear
    • Early
    • $7.8B
    • Support 76
     High-speed data converters: the merchant ADC/DAC layer behind every phased array, and whether a European entrant can get a production design-in
  10. 10Agentic AI security
    • Bull
    • Early
    • $27B
    • Support 67
     As AI agents gain the ability to execute code and reach into low-level infrastructure, value accrues to whoever owns the trusted-execution and attestation boundary that contains them
  11. 11Hardware attestation
    • Bear
    • Early
    • $20B
    • Support 66
     A neutral cross-vendor verifier for what ran on shared AI hardware could be the Okta of compute, but nobody yet pays for what NVIDIA, Intel and AWS give away.
  12. 12Defence field robotics
    • Bull
    • Closing
    • $3.7B
    • Support 64
     Defense / field robotics is the most revenue-validated frontier-robotics segment, driven by a zero-human-environment premium and sovereign procurement
  13. 13Airspace awareness sensing
    • Bear
    • Early
    • $1.4B
    • Support 64
     Airspace awareness sensing: the radar layer that makes uncrewed flight legal and sites defensible
  14. 14Defence mass autonomy
    • Closing
    • Support 64
     Defense tech — mass-produced attritable autonomy and the European resilience stack (watch)