Edgewing JV opens in Italy its first global site for GCAP

With a ceremony attended by Italian, Japanese and United Kingdom Government, diplomatic and industrial representatives, Edgewing, the joint venture devoted to the design and delivery of Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP)’s 6th generation air combat platform, opened on 9 October, the first of three engineering sites among the participating nations at Turin, Italy. The same company’s facilities in the Turin area will build components and accommodate one of the assembly lines for the new generation aircraft GCAP, Lorenzo Mariani, Leonardo CEO and General Manager, said

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“Our new site in Italy is the latest step in Edgewing’s rapid growth as an organisation, as we scale up the company across our three nations. Ready to disrupt the defence industry by delivering dramatically quicker than previous generation programmes, the innovation and energy we can access here in Turin will underpin our acceleration,” said Marco Zoff, CEO of Edgewing, the joint venture company equally owned by the partner aerospace industries BAE Systems (UK), Leonardo (Italy) and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd (JAIEC) (Japan), launched in 2025 as the industry lead to design, develop and deliver the GCAP 6th generation air combat platform

“With the GCAP, we are not just developing advanced technologies, but generate the capacity to integrate them at a speed never experienced before. I believe that by working together, we can achieve this result … leaving behind a legacy of new capacity for international industrial cooperation,” Chief Inspector General (ret.) Giuseppe Lupoli, Managing Director Edgewing Italy.

The joint venture is open to additional nations and industries, as in the case of Germany after the UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that he was open to Germany joining the programme. Asked again about the influence of a potential participation, Lorenzo Mariani stated: “In the longer term, the presence of Germany would be industrially beneficial and economically sustain the investment that we are making. In the shorter term, vice versa, it will be a little disruptive……It is the government’s decision to take some risks in the short term to reduce some risks in the longer term…… I think the target date of 2035 is what we are at the moment committed to. And of course, I’m not saying that this would not be possible with Germany. I’m simply saying that there will be some risk on that.”

Canada has become a formal observer to the program: “This is a different story, because Canada is openly accepting a different path that is followedpassing through the role of observer. And observer means observing, sharing, and,potentially, gradually entering into the programme.”

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The GCAP is designed to operate independently while coordinating other assets in the battlefield and to rapidly adapt to evolving threats through continuous capability updates. It is built to perform multiple missions simultaneously, with extended range and persistence. It uses advanced stealth technology to operate for extended periods in contested airspace, undetected, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to process sensor data and support faster and better-informed battlefield decisions. As for the coordination of other assets, and in particular unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) or loyal wingman, these are currently out of the GCAP joint development activities perimeter. Among the work begin carried out by single nations, the Leonardo CEO said the company is working hard on the manned-unmanned teaming and following the joint activities with Baykar between M-346 and Kizilelma UCAV, Leonardo is looking to involve the Eurofighter Typhoon in the process.

Turin is the first of three new Edgewing sites to open for engineering activities since the joint GCAP Agency-Edgewing headquarters was established in Reading, UK, in 2025. The GCAP Agency is directed by the Steering Committee of the GIGO (GCAP International Government Organisation), established in December 2024 to oversee delivery of the programme on behalf of Italy, Japan, and UK. “The Agency in empowered to manage, coordinate, and execute all phases of the programme on behalf of the three governments. Our role includes coordinating timelines, requirements, and strategic objectives among the three partner nations,” said Giandomenico Tarrico, GCAP Agency Director Commercial & Corporate. Differently from previous experiences such as the Eurofighter and Tornado programmes, “Edgewing will have the full design authority for the aircraft, which the joint venture will maintain throughout its service life,” said Brooke Hoskins, Edgewing Chief Programme Officer (CPO).

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The site is the first of global engineering facilities to be established among the three countries. “We will be formally open the same site in 2027 in Japan, in Nagoya,” the Edgewing CPO said. This will be followed by a third one in Warton, in the northwest of England, later on the same year. They will be the main engineering centres. “We have engineering in Reading at top level, but the detailed engineering will be done in all those three sites,” she explained.

The three sites manpower will not be from a single nation. “In Turin as well as in Nagoya and Warton, we expect to have a mixture of nationalities, continuing in the tri-national approach,” Hoskins continued, multi-nationality being at the heart of the programme. “The principle is equal partnership and so both on the government and the industry side, there is a full one-third, one-third, one-third…… It won’t be necessarily exact one-third in the global sense, but there will be a mix in every single site.”

“By the end of 2027 we should have about 300 people working in this site. This is the first building accommodating JV personnel, and a second one will be available next year here in Turin.” Each “global site” will have 300 people by late 2027, manpower increasing to 1,000 employees per site when full operational capability will be attained, Brooke Hoskins explained.

The GCAP was established as a programme in 2022 and the Agency was set up in 2024 as the customers organization, in July 2025, Edgewing JV was established and personnel coming from the industrial partners were sent to Reading to set up the company. The latter has received a first bridging £ 686 million contract in April this year by the GCAP Agency while the second one worth £ 4.6 billion was signed last July, representing a major shift from previously awarded industry contracts on national basis. The latter, as remarked by GCAP Agency representative, will enable the completion of the advanced concept and assessment phase of the programme, and further joint detailed design and development, driving the next phase of key design and engineering activity for the programme. The System Requirements Review (SSR), referring to the discussions to transform the requirements in specifications that are the reference that the industry needs to start the design and development will be completed by late 2027, opening to the follow-on design and development phase.

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Edgewing, on its side, has more recently awarded contracts covering the same period and scope to the two other joint ventures which have been established to deal with respectively the sensors and electronics and with the propulsion and power system of the GCAP. The latter is managed by the consortium including Avio Aero (Italy), IHI corporation (Japan) and Rolls-Royce (UK). As highlighted by Alberto Squillante, programme director for Avio Aero but speaking in the occasion on behalf of the consortium, while the partnership between Avio Aero and Rolls-Royce is well known and well established, thanks to joint programmes such as the RB199 engine for the Panavia Tornado and the EJ200 for the Eurofighter Typhoon, “with IHI, of course, it is something we are experiencing new, but the level of interaction and integration we already achieved is very good,” he remarked. Speaking about the programme, Squillante said the three companies have moved steps closer to the ground-testing of the GCAP engine demonstrator, “having ongoing reviews from a design perspective, which are pretty in good shape. So, we are actually progressing at pace…… We did progress also on component manufacturing, which is very critical for the future international demonstrator, and we are on plan.” The joint demonstrator will be key to inject and help mature technologies and de-risk the programme, alongside refining testing and development processes, a key milestone to maintain the schedule and deliver as per commitment.

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Established in September 2025, the GCAP Electronics Evolution (G2E) consortium, which comprises ELT Group (Italy), Leonardo (Italy), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Japan) and Leonardo UK, is responsible for the development and delivery of the Integrated Sensing And Non-Kinetic Effects & Integrated Communications Systems (known as ISANKE & ICS) that will make the GCAP 6th generation combat aircraft a “sensor powerhouse”, as remarked by Stefano Manganelli, Leonardo Electronics Italy, speaking on behalf of the consortium. Maintaining the same international approach of the programme, “Currently, colocation is in progress. In our site in Italy, we have people from the UK and from Japan and vice versa. Each one brings the best technologies to put them together with the other partner in order to serve the programme with really the best-in-class technology,” Manganelli said. Fusing and integrating the vast amount of information that will be available in the battle space will be the key differentiator that will set the GCAP core platform apart from previous generations of combat aircraft. Interestingly, the consortium representative displayed a slide showing what the four companies bring, for the benefit of the programme. Both Leonardo Italy and Leonardo UK provide the complete range of expertise and contribution, from sensing (radars, EW, EO), engagement (targeting & weapon subsystems) and protection (EW, weapons), to C2 (radars, EW and EO), communications and support while ELT Group is focused on sensing, protection, communications and support, and Mitsubishi Electric provides sensing, protection, C2 and communications capabilities and solutions.

Although having a different position so far, in July 2026, during the Farnborough international airshow, the Sovereign Effects Partners (SEP) – comprising MBDA UK, MBDA Italia, Mitsubishi Electric, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries – signed a collaboration agreement to support the GCAP. The new agreement establishes an operating model in which the SEP continue to collaborate on a wide range of joint activities, with the goal of supporting Edgewing in the development of the core GCAP platform. The agreement does not entail the joint development of the effectors themselves; rather, it aligns the respective national approaches and facilitates the digital integration of these systems into the GCAP. The SEP are strengthening their partnership, transitioning from a model based on individual national contracts to a stable international structure and an operating model that will enable them to collaborate effectively as part of a broader initiative during this upcoming phase, while ensuring operational readiness for the subsequent stages of the GCAP program.

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The Piedmont capital area will also be key in the development, test, production and assembly of the GCAP for the partner countries and potentially export customers as anticipated by Leonardo CEO and General Manager. The Leonardo Turin Caselle Airport facility today accommodates one the assembly lines of the Eurofighter Typhoon consortium and other Leonardo platforms, making it the logical candidate for the assembly site of the future GCAP.

However, in the area Leonardo has a well-established and advanced network of research, development and production facilities in the aerospace domain, including the Leonardo Innovation Labs as well as the laboratories of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Digital Technologies as part of the Centre of Excellence devoted to Advanced Cognitive Solution, alongside the Product Capability and Concept laboratory (PC2LAB), the latter being co-located in the area of the Edgewing global site. The latter is a location where digitalization and supercomputing capabilities support the design and development of entirely new aircraft – starting from the very early research phases – through virtual prototyping. By utilizing “digital twins” and sophisticated algorithmic testing within simulated operational scenarios, it is possible to manage the complex development process for next-generation aerial systems, refining their features and configurations long before they ever take to the skies for flight testing.

Photos and graphics courtesy Leonardo/Edgewing