Established in the UAE, the Missile Engineering Center was officially inaugurated on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, in the presence of His Excellency Tareq Al Hosani, Secretary General of Tawazun Council, Son Excellence M. Nicolas Niemtchinow, Ambassador of France to the UAE, and M. Eric Béranger, Chief Executive Officer of MBDA.

The aim of the Missile Engineering Center is to strengthen the long-term partnership between the UAE and MBDA and to establish a bedrock for the joint development of missile systems. This cooperation has the ultimate objective of offering missile systems at the right level of performance while leveraging and reinforcing the sovereign capabilities of the UAE defense industry through significant local content. The Missile Engineering Center in the UAE is the first of its kind for MBDA outside Europe; it is operational with a joint team of engineers from Tawazun Technology Innovation and MBDA working on the next generation of the Smart Weapons family.