Rafale 2040 – a winner or a looser ?

Rafal 2040 at Bourget 2019

The new Rafale – expected to arrive in 2040 – was presented at the Bourget Air Show (June 2019).

I keep wondering if this is the future or the past. The existing Rafale is extremely powerfull and impressive (everyone left the halls to see the airshow) but has heavy fuel consumption and makes lots of noise. In the opposite way, we have more and more electric drones that can stay in the air for 24 hours in a completely silent mode.

So is the future of warfare going to be manned or unmanned (knowing both solutions will contain powerfull sophisticated machines with lots of Artificial Intelligence) ?

So where to invest for future benefits ? One thing is sure, they wil both have AI !