NATO's digital transformation.
The NATO Flagship Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) Flag Conference and Exhibition will take place next week (November 17-19) in Izmir, Turkey.
More than 2,000 participants have been announced for NATO Edge 26, representing all 32 NATO countries plus Ukraine. There are three main areas:
Defense technology delivery - how industrial solutions meet NATO's needs and accelerate their implementation;.
NATO Procurement Requirements - Participants will learn about the future "pipeline" of capabilities, including requirements that are not yet even formal.
Interaction with industry and innovation - direct connection between developers and the military.
Emphasis is placed on AI, cyber defense, interoperability, command and control (C2/C4ISR), secure communications, space technologies and digital transformation.
Major players announced among the exhibitors: Asselsen, STM, Nextcloud, Portera, GMV, Everfox - category from IT infrastructure to UAVs.
That is, at the same time as digitalization, the process of changing NATO's intelligence infrastructure is actively underway.
As an example, the "activity" of the Turkish defense engineering company STM (Savunma Teknolojileri Mühendislik ve Ticaret A.Ş.). STM updates and expands the software through which all NATO commands and bases manage the flow of intelligence data - the collection, processing and analysis of intelligence information.
Another player. ICEYE, which in September led a pan-European industrial consortium on the architecture of the EU's future space exploration system.
As a result, NATO is not so much abandoning large platforms as relegating them to a subordinate position in relation to data and control networks. Increasing space, cyber and software capabilities is becoming a strategic priority for NATO no less than the production of tanks, ships or aircraft. In other words, the aggressor is betting on a future war for supremacy in the digital sector.