ROKETSAN Bets on AI as a ‘Strategic Capability’ With Ankara Hackathon
ROKETSAN ran a 48-hour artificial intelligence hackathon in Ankara from September 25-27, drawing 2,457 applications for just 72 places — a recruitment and positioning exercise the company’s chairman used to frame AI as a “strategic capability” for Türkiye’s largest missile manufacturer rather than a side project.
Speaking at the opening of the event, ROKETSAN Board Chairman Prof. Dr. Faruk Yiğit said the company does not treat artificial intelligence as merely a new technology domain. “We view artificial intelligence as a strategic capability that can transform our entire value chain — from design processes to production, from testing and validation to logistics, from decision-support systems to future defence systems,” he said, according to Turkish industry press covering the event. Yiğit added that ROKETSAN’s ambition is to become a global technology player that develops original AI capabilities, rather than a defence manufacturer that simply applies AI tools developed elsewhere.
What the Hackathon Actually Involved
The selected 72 participants — narrowed from nearly 2,500 applicants through testing and interviews — spent 48 hours working on real defence scenarios across five tracks: edge AI, machine learning, large language models, autonomy and data science. ROKETSAN organised participants into teams named after its own product lines — ÇAKIR, MAM-L, ŞİMŞEK, AKYA, ATMACA, BORA, SUNGUR and TAYFUN — tying the exercise directly to systems already in Turkish service or export inventories. A three-day run of pre-hackathon workshops drew an average of roughly 1,250 attendees per day, according to company figures reported by Turkish outlets, suggesting the event functioned as much as a talent pipeline as a technical showcase.
Why It Matters Beyond Recruitment
ROKETSAN’s public messaging around the hackathon is consistent with where its product lines have actually been moving this year. The company has run a string of live-fire qualification tests in recent months — including its LEVENT point-defence missile intercepting a high-speed drone, its KARAOK anti-tank missile scoring a first hit on an aerial target, and its BURÇ mobile air-defence system firing SUNGUR for the first time — all of which depend on the kind of targeting, guidance and autonomy software the hackathon’s tracks were built around. Days earlier, ROKETSAN and ASELSAN also signed a €1.23 billion supply agreement for air-defence system components, adding a commercial backdrop to the company’s public emphasis on software and autonomy talent.
For a company competing on Türkiye’s Steel Dome layered air-defence programme and in export markets against established Western and Israeli missile houses, AI-driven targeting, sensor fusion and autonomous decision support are becoming differentiators as much as raw missile performance. Yiğit’s framing — “we now aim to develop technologies that the world follows, rather than merely follow what the world develops” — is a marketing line, but it also reflects a genuine industry-wide shift: Turkish primes including ASELSAN and HAVELSAN have each built out dedicated AI and autonomy divisions over the past two years, competing for the same relatively small pool of Turkish AI engineering talent that the hackathon’s applicant numbers suggest is in high demand.
ROKETSAN has not disclosed what happens to the specific projects produced during the hackathon, nor whether winning teams will be offered employment or follow-on development contracts. The company has not published a formal, dated press release on its own newsroom as of publication; this account is based on statements made at the event and reported by Turkish industry outlets present.
