The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) has unveiled its inaugural technology strategy, designed to enhance innovation so that the alliance can achieve the necessary digital capabilities to conduct full-scale multi-domain operations by 2030.
The strategy, revealed on Tuesday, builds on NATO’s existing vision for digital transformation by outlining more specific projects and technological focus areas, according to NCIA Chief Technology Officer Antonio Calderon.
“This is the result of extensive consultations, workshops, brainstorming sessions, and various decisions across different dimensions. The selection criteria were centered on how we can leverage technologies to advance NATO’s digital transformation,” Calderon stated during a panel discussion in Tampa.
The strategy introduces the NATO Digital Foundry, a project aimed at fostering collaboration among NCIA, industry, non-profit organizations, and other NATO stakeholders to develop new technologies. The objective is to accelerate the transition of products from the prototyping stage into the hands of warfighters while ensuring security and interoperability, Calderon explained.
“It’s about creating a secure, open platform for industry, academia, and national centers. This allows you to bring your products, prototypes, or ideas from DIANA [Defense Innovation for the North Atlantic], and we will facilitate connections to the rest of NATO. We can offer links to our air command-and-control labs, ballistic missile defense labs, crypto labs, and network reference facilities, whether physical or virtual,” he remarked.
The strategy emphasizes six technological themes, including:
- Data exploitation
- Cloud computing
- Next generation networks
- Space technologies
- Cybersecurity and cyberspace technologies
- Quantum technologies
“Although we selected six technology themes, the real power lies in interconnecting them. When combined, these technologies act as a force multiplier for innovation,” Calderon noted. “It took months of discussion to determine these themes as they will provide the greatest value, given that we have thousands of technologies to choose from.”
The data exploitation focus aims to “leverage data as a strategic resource to enhance cognitive and decision superiority and facilitate [multi-domain operations],” as stated in the strategy. This theme places significant emphasis on exploring artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve data management, enabling the alliance and its warfighters to make better, quicker data-informed decisions.
The cloud computing theme centers around cloud adoption. The strategy details that NATO must transition its data to a cloud environment since, as “capabilities become increasingly software-based and software-defined, the cloud’s role as an open, secure, and scalable platform is essential for driving modern innovation and collaborative approaches.” Cloud adoption also encompasses the federation of clouds, allowing different cloud providers and systems to work together.
The next generation networks focus is designed to deliver communication services that are resilient in “high throughput and low latency” environments. This includes implementing safeguards while using 5G networks and addressing the increasing pressure on the radio frequency spectrum for primary military use at every World Radio Conference cycle.
The space technologies focus expands on NATO’s requirement to guarantee access to data, products, and services (DPS) while assuring defense capabilities that limit adversarial use of space-enabled and space-based systems against NATO. This entails leveraging SATCOM, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), positioning, navigation, and timing technologies. NATO also aims to establish responsive launch capabilities to allow for the rapid deployment of new satellites, ensuring swift access to DPS.
In the domain of cybersecurity, the strategy delineates two primary objectives. The first involves the introduction and implementation of modern cyber architectures across all member nations, emphasizing the need for zero trust principles and “secure integration” in utilizing information and operational technologies.
The second objective focuses on supporting cyberspace operations from both offensive and defensive perspectives, incorporating ISR, counter-AI technologies, and “cyberspace targeting.” In the realm of AI, the strategy aspires to develop a “cyber immune system” that not only defends against cyber threats but also autonomously “self-repairs and adapts” in the event of breaches.
Lastly, the strategy underlines NATO’s commitment to quantum technologies. This was considered the “more controversial” theme during the strategy’s development, as some participants are skeptical about the feasibility of quantum technology becoming a reality.
Nonetheless, NATO plans to invest in quantum sensors to maintain the alliance’s “technological edge.” Additionally, the strategy raises concerns regarding the potential dangers posed by quantum computers and advocates for the development of quantum key distributors and quantum number generators to safeguard against the capabilities of quantum computers that could compromise the cryptographic protections of the alliance’s systems.
