Dream promotes sovereign AI for governments as founder warns against reliance on U.S. tech groups

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Sovereign AI for governments

Highlights

Dream launches Atlas in June, enabling governments to run customised AI models on their own infrastructure without relying on U.S. cloud providers.
Dream, valued at $3 billion in June after raising over $400 million from Bain Capital Ventures and Tau Capital, reports government-focused deployments in sovereign AI and cyber defence.
In August, Dream researchers document the first end-to-end autonomous attack on a government, highlighting accelerated machine-led threats and supporting demand for sovereign AI systems.

Dream expands pitch from cyber defence to sovereign AI

As reported by the Financial Times, Hulio says AI now qualifies as critical infrastructure and argues that countries should avoid the risk of having access to essential systems curtailed by large U.S. technology companies. He says each government should operate its own model, tailored to official needs and hosted on infrastructure it controls.

Dream, which Hulio founded with former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz in 2022, initially focuses on cyber security for governments before widening its offering. In June, the company launches Atlas, a platform designed to let governments build and run customised AI models on their own systems without relying on outside cloud providers.

Hulio says the company is targeting narrower government uses rather than broad consumer-style chatbots. He argues that models trained on a state's own data for tasks such as intelligence analysis or procurement can run faster, cost less and align more closely with official requirements.

Funding, products and market reach

Dream has raised more than $400 million and was valued at $3 billion in June, with investors including Bain Capital Ventures and Abu Dhabi-based Tau Capital. The company says its first product, Sphere, provides AI-enabled cyber defence for governments and critical infrastructure, while Hero is built to identify and patch software vulnerabilities autonomously.

In August, Dream's researchers say they find evidence of what Hulio describes as the first end-to-end autonomous attack on a government target, reinforcing the company's argument that machine-led threats are accelerating. Dream is headquartered in Tel Aviv and has offices in Vienna and Abu Dhabi, with about 350 employees after three years of growth.

Hulio left NSO Group in 2022 after a decade leading the spyware maker, which was later blacklisted by the U.S. government and lost a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp over Pegasus-related hacks. Despite that history, he says his past dealings with governments help Dream win trust, and the company says it has sold cyber security tools to more than a dozen countries, while its sovereign AI product is deployed in two.

Our earlier report on the surge in cybersecurity funding highlighted how total investment rose on the back of fewer but much larger late-stage rounds, with AI-focused and identity-security startups taking the biggest share. We also noted that consolidation is accelerating through major acquisitions, underscoring how rapidly advancing AI is reshaping security priorities and driving bigger bets on a smaller number of companies.

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