AI Summit Budapest 2026

Dr. Heiko Borchert

CO-director
Defense AI Observatory

Dr. Borchert is Co-Director of the Defense AI Observatory at the Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, and industry partner of GhostPlay and Ghost-Play@SEA, capability and technology development projects of the German Bundeswehr’s Center for Digitalization and Technology Research funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU. Dr. Borchert owns and manages Borchert Consulting & Research AG, a strategic affairs consulting boutique, and is partner with the Helsinki-based Economic Security Forum. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik and The De-fence Horizon Journal and is Associate Editor of Law and Geoeconomics From 2016 to 2019 he has been actively involved in defense capability devel- opment by setting-up a six-nation project that has been successfully adopted in the context of the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and organizing four six-nation defense research consortia for the 2019 Preparatory Action on Defense Research (PADR). In addition, he has supported five defense export campaigns of major European defense companies in his role as a political advisor and concept developer. Dr. Borchert is a conference speaker and lectures regularly at different security and defense academies in Europe and abroad. He studied international relations, business administration, economics, and law at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), where he also received his PhD. He has published more than 175 papers in his areas of work.