TPG.L Share News (TPG)

(Sharecast News) - TP Group has been awarded £900,000 in development funding from the Ministry of Defence as part of the Defence Growth Partnership Innovation Challenge.The AIM-listed specialist services and engineering group will act as the prime contractor and project leader as it looks to develop one of its artificial intelligence applications over the next two years.TP ultimately aims to deliver a "fully operational demonstrator against the requirements of a specific future naval application".The outfit will be supported by industrial partners Thales and the University of Exeter, as well as other application partners within the MoD.TP believes the funding provides it with "a catapult to future application development" and has already entered into discussions related to unmanned air systems and other maritime uses, such as optimising maintenance visits for offshore wind farms.Chief executive Phil Cartmell, said: "This award is excellent news for the Polaris team and for the group as a whole and highlights the value of our acquisition strategy to date where an SME with leading technical abilities can be supported by resources, relationships and processes from the wider group to bring specialist technologies to market and generate real value."As of 1120 BST, TP shares had slipped 5.76% to 6.55p.