Selçuk Bayraktar's SAHA 2026 Vision Address: Open-Source AI, Federated Learning Against Techno-Hegemony

Baykar Chairman Selçuk Bayraktar closed the SAHA 2026 International Defence, Aerospace and Space Industry Fair in Istanbul with a programmatic "Vision Address" framed around the Tepegöz and Basat saga from the medieval Turkish epic Dede Korkut. Bayraktar argued that the principal threat to sovereignty in the 21st century is no longer "conventional armies massed at the border" but a "techno-capitalist global hegemony that infiltrates supply chains, data centres and the devices in our pockets." He criticised dopamine-driven social-media algorithms — optimised, in his words, around "anger, hedonism and fear" — for ushering users into a "voluntary captivity," and likened the dominant tech giants to "techno-feudal lords."

The most pointed supply-chain reference came in the form of a direct allusion to recent sabotage incidents: "Bombs smuggled through the supply chain can turn the phone in your pocket, your smart-watch, even your earbuds into weapons." Bayraktar used a "spider-web" analogy to argue against single-source hardware and software dependencies and called for an open-source, transparent and auditable national software-hardware ecosystem. On AI specifically, he contrasted the "data gluttony of hundreds of thousands of accelerators" with a hybrid path that emphasises "semantic improvements analogous to human reasoning" — capable, in his view, of outperforming brute-force scaling on a fraction of the compute.

The roadmap he laid out rests on four pillars: (i) Federated Learning architectures so hospital, institutional and within-border data can train shared models without leaving the country; (ii) Edge AI models that run directly on the device, with no cloud dependency; (iii) Quantum-resistant cryptography deployed today to harden communications networks for the post-quantum era; and (iv) a "Technological Solidarity Alliance" in which advanced technology is shared with allied and "oppressed peoples" to build a counter-bloc to the global oligopolies. He closed by crediting the eight-year-old TEKNOFEST programme with raising a "freedom generation" that, in his framing, "is severing the threads of the global spider-web one by one."

In a separate appearance at the same fair, SAHA Istanbul Chairman and Baykar General Manager Haluk Bayraktar illustrated the product-and-procurement face of that vision. SKYDAGGER — the loitering-munitions venture launched two years ago — now exports to 17 countries, while indigenous piston and turbofan engines for both Bayraktar TB2 and the loitering-munitions families are in production. Haluk Bayraktar said volume economics for loitering munitions require "tens-of-thousands-per-year low-cost serial manufacturing, and that demands a robust supply chain," and announced a robotics-line agreement with an Italian firm signed at the fair. The supply-chain takeaway is clear: indigenous production, elimination of unverified intrusion vectors, and robotics-driven high-volume output are emerging as the central watchwords for the next phase of Türkiye's defence industry.

Key Takeaways:
1. In his SAHA 2026 closing address, Selçuk Bayraktar identified 'techno-capitalist hegemony infiltrating the supply chain' as the central sovereignty threat of the 21st century.
2. He directly invoked the weaponisation of consumer electronics through tampered supply chains, arguing for an open-source, auditable national hardware-software ecosystem.
3. The proposed roadmap rests on four pillars: federated learning, edge AI, quantum-resistant cryptography, and a 'Technological Solidarity Alliance' with allied nations.
4. Haluk Bayraktar disclosed that loitering-munitions exporter SKYDAGGER now sells into 17 countries and that a robotics-production-line deal was signed with an Italian firm at the fair.
5. Türkiye's defence industry is signalling a clear shift toward an open-source, auditable and robotics-driven high-volume supply-chain architecture.