Sodern, a subsidiary of Ariane Group, was looking for a solution to enable its employees to securely leverage its highly sensitive internal data through generative AI. It chose another French company: LightOn, and its Paradigm platform.
Based in Limeil-Brévannes, in the Paris region, Sodern specializes in space instrumentation and neutronics. It designs and manufactures star trackers—optoelectronic devices that, when mounted on civilian and military satellites, allow their orientation by analyzing visible constellations. The company also develops detectors for nuclear physics, Earth observation, and sensors for defense applications. As a long-time supplier to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, its strategic positioning places it at the heart of technological sovereignty and data security challenges.
Paradigm, LightOn's turnkey solution
Launched in 2023 by LightOn, one of Europe's pioneers in GenAI, Paradigm relies on advanced technologies such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The platform is regularly enriched with new language models (LLMs) and allows interaction with a wide range of content: texts, images, graphics, diagrams.
Designed to meet the security and confidentiality requirements of sensitive organizations, it can be integrated into clients' existing infrastructures, including in isolated environments (on-premise, air-gapped), without the need for external cloud services.
A secure and pragmatic deployment at Sodern
Deployed on Sodern's proprietary Dell x NVIDIA infrastructure, Paradigm is now used by the company's 450 employees in a fully controlled environment. Several concrete use cases quickly emerged:
  • code generation, cleaning, and documentation;
  • information retrieval in technical or administrative document databases;
  • rapid content writing;
  • automatic document summarization.
In a few months, Sodern claims to have observed an acceleration of processing flows, increased productivity in support functions such as design offices, and better responsiveness in critical contexts.
For Jean-Marc Espinasse, Deputy General Manager of the company, this deployment also serves as a lever for cultural adaptation: by making generative AI accessible to all employees, Sodern initiates a gradual upskilling essential for the emergence of future, more technologically intensive use cases.
On his side, Igor Carron, co-founder and CEO of LightOn, emphasizes:
"With Paradigm, we demonstrate that it is possible to combine sovereignty, security, and the power of generative AI in the industry. Sodern is a prime example of an effective deployment aligned with concrete business objectives."