The NATO Communications and Information Agency will organize the NATO Digital Foundry project to open opportunities for collaboration on new technologies with industry, nonprofits and other alliance stakeholders.
According to Antonio Calderon, NCIA chief technology officer, the project is an offshoot of the agency’s first technology strategy for NATO to acquire innovative digital capabilities for full-scale multidomain operations by 2030, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
Technology Focus Areas
At a panel discussion in NCIA’s NATO Edge technology event in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, Calderon said the strategy seeks to create additional projects and technology focus areas to flesh out the alliance’s digital transformation vision. Six technologies were identified as the focus themes: data exploitation, cloud computing, next-generation networks, space technologies, quantum, and cybersecurity and cyberspace technologies.
The official pointed out that the goal of the strategy’s initial foundry project is to move products rapidly from the prototyping stage to warfighters in a secure and interoperable mode. He said companies can present their prototypes or startup ideas to NCIA for possible introduction to NATO allies.
“We can offer you connections to our air command-and-control labs, ballistic missile defense labs, our crypto labs, our network reference facilities and all those, whether physical or virtual,” Calderon told the NATO Edge participants.