Fortnite maker funds Army training software developer

THE developer of hit video game Fortnite has backed a UK technology start-up building simulation software for the British Army.

Epic Games, the $30bn (£27bn) US tech giant, has joined a $30m funding round for Hadean, a company developing software to allow thousands of soldiers to train in digital worlds.

Founded in 2015, London-based Hadean’s “distributed computing” technology enables huge numbers of players to take part in online simulations. It is working with video games developers such as Epic and Minecraft, as well as defence companies including BAE.

Earlier this year, it signed a deal to provide software for a “synthetic” training environment for the British Army.

The Daily Telegraph revealed in August Hadean had secured the backing of Chinese gaming giant Tencent, which is also an investor in Epic, as well as In-q-tel, a fund backed by America’s CIA. The British Government is also an investor through the Future Fund.

The backing of Epic represents a vote of confidence from one of the biggest companies vying to dominate the socalled “metaverse”. This new wave of technologies has been billed as a kind of 3D internet, adding virtual reality and simulations with tens of thousands of active players. Epic develops its own simulation technology, the “Unreal Engine” software, used to power many of the world’s popular video games.

Epic’s main game, Fortnite, has 270m players. It is viewed as a rival to Meta,

the owner of Facebook. Marc Petit, vice-president at Epic, said Hadean’s technology “will provide the infrastructure that is needed as we work to create a scalable metaverse”.

The Army is using Hadean to build computer simulations that can war game vast exercises and battle tactics. It is advised by the UK’S National Security Strategic Investment Fund, a government-backed fund linked to GCHQ.