Cognizant Steps into Aerospace and Defense Territory with Belcan Acquisition

Cognizant just acquired Belcan, a US-based provider of engineering R&D services in a US$1.3 billion deal.

The acquisition paves the way for Cognizant to score lucrative contracts in the aerospace and defense sectors.

Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar stated that the company aims to cross-sell its AI and machine learning capabilities to Belcan customers.

With more than 6,500 employees across numerous delivery centers in the US and Britain, Belcan provides a wide range of R&D services to hundreds of well-funded clients.

This is Cognizant’s second significant acquisition this year. In January, the company purchased Thirdera, a ServiceNow advisory platform.

Founded in 1958, Belcan generates about US$800 million in revenue annually, with growth exceeding 8% over the past two years. More than 75% of Belcan’s revenue comes from the aerospace and defense sector.

“Belcan’s deep engineering capabilities and domain expertise across the aerospace and defense market will be complemented by Cognizant’s scale and multi-decade digital engineering expertise, providing Belcan’s blue-chip client roster access to our advanced AI, cloud, and data technologies,” said Cognizant’s CEO.

Analysts note that AI is in high demand among defense firms. The technology is crucial for cutting-edge surveilance technologies. It has now being incorporated to cameras, radar feeds and sensors.

The US government recently confirmed its use of AI and machine learning algorithms to identify strike targets.