ADEX 2026 Opens in Baku With Record Turnout of 280 Defense Companies

The sixth Azerbaijan International Defence Exhibition opened at the Baku Expo Center on September 30, bringing together a record 280 companies and organizations from 30 countries. The three-day show runs through October 2 alongside Securex Caspian, the country’s internal security exhibition.

Defense Industry Minister Vugar Mustafayev opened the two exhibitions and read a congratulatory message from President Ilham Aliyev to participants, according to Azerbaijani news agencies APA and AZERTAC. Heads of foreign delegations, government officials and industry representatives attended the ceremony.

A bigger show than any previous ADEX

ADEX has grown steadily since its first edition in 2014, when 168 companies from 33 countries took part. This year the organizers opened the Baku Expo Center’s fifth pavilion for the first time to absorb the demand, and set aside the fourth pavilion entirely for Azerbaijan’s own defense industry.

What is on the floor

The exhibition covers naval systems, unmanned platforms, armored vehicles, small arms, electronic warfare, C4ISR technologies and cybersecurity. Turkish manufacturers brought new vehicles including the PAMIR 4×4 and an upgraded KIRPI II, according to Army Recognition’s preview, and unmanned systems occupy a growing share of the halls, mirroring their weight in the wars of the past few years.

Turkiye is the most represented foreign country, with more than 50 companies. The United States has its strongest presence in the show’s history, and several American and European firms are exhibiting in Baku for the first time. A separate look at the full exhibitor picture and the countries represented accompanies this report.

Growth across six editions

The growth says something about Baku’s position after the 2020 and 2023 fighting in Karabakh. Azerbaijan has raised its defense and security budget to 8.7 billion manats (about $5.1 billion) for 2026, and the government has been open about wanting to turn a procurement-heavy market into an exporting one. That ambition is on display in Pavilion 4, which is covered in detail in our report on Azerbaijan’s national exposition.

A market reshaped by two wars

The context for the record numbers is the decade Azerbaijan has just been through. The 2020 Karabakh war, fought and won with heavy use of Turkish and Israeli-supplied drones and loitering munitions, turned the country into the defense industry’s favorite case study and validated a procurement strategy built on unmanned systems. The 2023 operation that followed ended the Karabakh conflict on Baku’s terms, and the peace process with Armenia since then has lowered the political barriers that once kept many Western suppliers away.

At the same time, the war in Ukraine has constrained Russia’s ability to supply and support the region’s legacy fleets, pushing former captive customers across the Caucasus and Central Asia to look elsewhere. The countries walking the halls this week, from Uzbekistan to Pakistan to the Gulf states, are largely the same ones reassessing old supplier relationships, which is precisely why Western, Turkish and Chinese exhibitors have turned up in Baku in record numbers to meet them.

What to watch over the next two days

Opening day at a defense show is for ceremonies and delegations; contracts and memorandums tend to land on days two and three. The signings to watch are co-production deals involving Azerbaijan’s own industry, which has an entire pavilion to fill with partners, and any first Western sale into a market that Turkish and Russian suppliers have dominated. Announcements from the Turkish group, which arrived more than 50 companies strong, have been a fixture of every ADEX since 2014, and the first came within hours: Turkish-Azerbaijani agreements reported at more than $500 million were signed on the opening day.

ADEX 2026 is open on September 30 from 14:00 to 18:00, on October 1 from 10:00 to 18:00 and on October 2 from 10:00 to 17:00. Practical details are in the visitor guide, and the themes emerging from day one are summed up in five takeaways from the opening.