DALO Industry Days 2026 opened this week at the new MCH Messecenter in Herning as, by a wide margin, the largest edition in the event's history; more than 1,200 companies and over 20,000 visitors are attending across the two-day event.
The trip to DALO Industry Days is sponsored by BAE Systems Bofors
Nordic Defence Sector spoke with DALO director Per Pugholm Olsen shortly after he delivered the opening address to this year's exhibition:
"We are now in the middle of the largest materiel and industry exhibition we have ever held. It shows that there is a capable industry out there ready to support the defence sector, but it also shows that there is enormous interest in the industry as a whole," says Pugholm Olsen.
What does this record turnout say about the growth of Denmark's and the Nordic region’s defence industry?
"It has to be said with a somewhat sobering starting point: this reflects the fact that the security situation in the world has worsened and become more challenging, and that has created an acute need across Europe, including Denmark, to build up military power. That has given us increased budgets, as it has in many other countries. It means we are procuring more, and when demand rises, supply follows. What we're seeing today is an expression of that: a huge interest from both Danish industry and the foreign companies present here," says Pugholm Olsen.
Denmark's defence budget has grown to its highest level in at least three decades, with increases bringing it to 3.5% of Danish GDP. According to Pugholm Olsen, however, more money does not automatically translate into more capability.
With increased defence budgets, what is currently the biggest bottleneck to converting that spending into real, improved capabilities for the armed forces?
"I think the biggest bottleneck for us, and I believe this applies across the countries, is that industry's supply simply isn't large enough to match demand. That means prices are somewhat higher, but more critically, it means lead times are very long. That's a consequence of many years of low defence budgets, which led industry to adapt to low demand. Now demand has suddenly exploded, almost from one day to the next, and the industry is still catching up.” he explains.
However, the DALO director remains optimistic: “What I see here today is that a long list of companies we wouldn't normally think of as defence companies are also present. I see that as a sign that the industrial base is growing, and that's a huge positive," he says.
Denmark has entered a growing number of bilateral agreements with other countries, particularly in Europe. When Denmark enters into these agreements, what role does DALO play in advising which countries should be prioritised?
"The overall prioritisation, when we talk about political partnership agreements, is of course something the government decides at the political level. What we contribute is input on what the options actually are. Many countries offer, or have opened up, the possibility of cooperating on comparable types of materiel systems. From our side, we assess what it would look like if we partnered with one country and bought a given system, versus another. The armed forces then look at whether it fits operationally: do we face a similar set of tasks, are we in the same geography, and so on.” Pugholm Olsen says.
He also describes another aspect of today’s security diplomacy. “Of course there's also a political dimension. In today's world you need relationships not just with one country, but with many. If I have many ties in one place, I may need to balance that by building more elsewhere next time,".
Bureaucracy and red tape are frequently blamed for slowing down defence procurement across Europe. Can you give concrete examples of administrative barriers that DALO has helped clear away?
"I don't know if we can take the credit for clearing them”, he smiles, “but with the political agreement made last year, the so-called Accelerationsfonden (Acceleration Fund), from February 2025, a clear political signal was given that we should make far greater use of the exemption rules that exist in procurement law, for example by making direct awards instead of going through a full tender.”
Pugholm Olsen continues by describing what this changes: “Instead of spending a very long time getting from identifying a need to signing a contract, we can now write contracts very quickly and get straight into the production line to receive deliveries."
He compares the shift to buying a car.
"Under the old rules, you essentially had to find the economically best solution in every single case. It's like if you had to go out and buy an electric car: you'd have to work out which one offered the best price today. But before you finished your analysis, a new model would appear, so you could never actually get there.”, he explains. “It was a never-ending story, because something was always changing. If instead you just decide, 'today I'm going to buy an electric car,' you simply find one you like and can afford. So instead of spending months or years getting from need to decision, as we used to, we can now do it almost from one day to the next. It's a bit of a caricature, but that's the essence of it," says Pugholm Olsen.
Looking ahead, let’s say that in three years we see that the defence sector has continued to see strong growth. What will the success criteria have been?
"The success criterion is that we have actually received what we've now signed contracts for, and that we've been able to introduce it across the organisation, throughout the armed forces, and use it so that we don't just have something we've bought, but an operational capability. Materiel that is manned by soldiers who are trained and can use it as a real combat unit." he says.
Per Pugholm Olsen closes with perhaps the clearest goal for DALO, and more broadly the Danish defence as a whole, in the coming years:
"What we've done so far is the easy part. It's writing the contract. The hard part is getting the delivery, and making it actually work."