Aselsan

Aselsan was founded in 1975 by the Turkish Army Foundation, a direct response to a US arms embargo imposed on Turkey after its 1974 intervention in Cyprus, and that origin story still shapes how the company describes itself: an answer to what happens when a country cannot count on buying critical defense technology from allies. Five decades later, Aselsan is Turkey's largest defense electronics company and one of the most vertically integrated players in the sector globally, organized into five main areas. Communication and Information Technologies builds military radios and tactical communications networks that link units and platforms in the field. Microelectronics, Guidance, and Electro-Optics covers night vision devices, thermal cameras, laser designators, and the guidance electronics that steer precision munitions, an area where Aselsan has pushed hard to reduce reliance on foreign components.

Radar and Electronic Warfare Systems produces mobile AESA radars like the ALP 100-G and ALP 300-G families and the EIRS early-warning radar, alongside a wide range of jamming and electronic support systems including the KORAL mobile jamming system, the VURAL family of electronic warfare suites, and the PUHU and REDET systems used across air, land, and naval platforms. Defense Systems Technologies is where Aselsan's weapons and air defense work sits, including the KORKUT 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun system and the Hisar family of short and medium-range air defense missile systems, developed to give Turkey layered protection against aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles without depending on imported systems. The fifth area, Transportation, Security, Energy and Automation Systems, applies Aselsan's electronics expertise to civilian and dual-use markets including rail signaling, port security, and industrial automation. On the naval side, Aselsan builds the GOKDENIZ close-in weapon system, a radar-guided gun system for last-line ship self-defense, along with unmanned surface vessels and combat management systems fitted to Turkish naval platforms.

Precision-guided munitions round out the portfolio through the TOLUN family of guidance kits that convert unguided bombs into precision weapons. Aselsan is majority owned by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation, the same state-linked entity that controls TAI, reinforcing the tight relationship between Turkey's major defense primes and its government. Headquartered in Ankara with roughly 12,000 employees and reported 2024 revenue of about 3.5 billion dollars, Aselsan has become central to Turkey's defense export push, supplying electronic warfare, radar, and air defense systems not just to the Turkish military but increasingly to partner nations across the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia looking for alternatives to Western and Russian suppliers.