The man behind one of the most notorious spyware tools ever built is now lecturing governments on digital trust. That’s awkward. But the argument Shalev Hulio is making deserves a hearing, even if the speaker makes it hard to give one.
Hulio, a co-creator of Pegasus, now runs Dream, an AI cyber defense company. In an interview with the Financial Times, as reported by Android Headlines, he said countries need full control over their digital infrastructure. His warning is simple: if a US provider cuts off access overnight, national defense systems go dark.
Small models, local hardware
The most interesting part is the technical stance. Hulio doesn’t want governments buying giant commercial models. He recommends narrow security tools that run locally on one, two, or three GPUs. That’s a direct contrast to the OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google approach, where bigger general-purpose models are the product.
It also fits a broader trend. Mistral in Europe and a growing list of national AI programs are selling the same idea of sovereignty. Dream’s version is leaner, aimed at one job, and keeps intelligence data inside the country’s borders.
From spyware to defense contracts
Hulio faced worldwide backlash after Pegasus hacked thousands of phones through a one-click flaw in WhatsApp. He left NSO Group and started Dream in 2022 with former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Since then:
- Investors have put in $400 million.
- Valuation reached $3 billion earlier this year.
- More than 12 countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East use its software.
- The company says its systems caught an automated AI cyberattack aimed at Taiwanese government agencies.
Those are company claims, and nobody has verified the Taiwan incident independently.
Does this matter?
Yes, though mostly as a signal. Governments really do worry about depending on foreign cloud and model providers, and a geopolitical dispute could turn that worry into an actual outage. Dream is cashing in on that fear with a pitch that costs less than building a frontier lab.
Still, privacy critics have a point. A former spyware boss selling trust is a hard sell, and buyers should ask who audits Dream’s code and who sees the data. Local hardware doesn’t fix a vendor you can’t inspect.
The real test is budgets. Smaller nations have to weigh independence against hardware and talent costs. If more of them sign on to narrow, in-house tools, the big US labs lose a lucrative government market. If not, sovereign AI stays a good talking point.
