The Gowind design is a family of steel monohull frigates, corvettes and offshore patrol vessels developed since 2006 by France's Naval Group, formerly known as DCNS, to conduct missions in the littoral zone such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW).

To do so it formed the Kership joint venture with the Piriou shipyard in Concarneau, Brittany in May 2013 to build and market lightly armed and armoured OPVs for customs, fishing and other home security missions.

Naval Group said this would enable it to concentrate on "developing relations" with clients seeking heavily armed and armoured warships while Kership handles the more civilian-standard OPVs.

It is armed with: Sensors: The Gowind 2500 multi-mission corvette is designed for surveillance, surface and subsurface combat, protection and escort naval missions.

Separately, MBDA negotiated a contract to equip the ships with MICA vertical launch air-defense missiles and MM40 Block 3 Exocet anti-ship missiles, together worth an additional 400 million euros, while Naval Group negotiated a 100–200 million euro contract for torpedoes.

It was apparently President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who decided these were the ships he wanted rather than the Meko A200 being offered by German group ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) or the Sigma corvette proposed by Damen of the Netherlands.

[18][19] In April 2015, Naval Group started cutting metal for the very first Gowind 2500 corvette, with a planned construction period of 29 months.

[23] All the Panoramic Sensors and Intelligence Modules (PSIM) were produced and tested in Lorient by Naval Group and later shipped to Alexandria for installation on the corvettes.

[35] In 2019 March 25, the United Arab Emirates Navy had signed a contract with Naval Group for Euro750 million (USD850m) for two 2500 class frigates (actually weighing 2,700 tonnes) with options for two more to be built in partnership with Abu Dhabi Ship Building Company (ADSB).

[48] In July 2019, Naval Group won a €1.2 billion contract, which included the construction of four new Gowind multi-mission corvettes for the Romanian Navy.

[53][8] In January 2020, the Indonesian Minister of Defence Prabowo Subianto during a bilateral meeting in France with his French counterpart Florence Parly said the Indonesian Ministry is interested in French military equipment; including 36 Dassault Rafale aircraft, Scorpène submarines and 2 Gowind corvettes.