What are NATO countries learning about Ukrainian defense technology?

On the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held a summit this week in Washington, D.C., attended by Ukraine It occupied a prominent place. But the New technologies Startups will be supported in their ambitions to adapt to it. Confronting Current Threats For safety.

the NATO It stated in the Washington Summit Declaration that it has accelerated its transformation to meet current and future threats and maintain its technological edge, which it will do through experimentation and rapid adoption of emerging technologies.

Techniques such as artificial intelligence (any), Biotechnology And the Quantum Technology They are developing and innovating at a very rapid pace, and NATO states that its goal is to benefit from these types of innovations.

What we have long realized is that One of the foundations of our capabilities is deterrence and defense of our technological advantage.“It’s a very good idea,” Phil Lockwood, NATO’s head of innovation, told euronews Next ahead of the Washington summit.

However, he said that although we may be in An era of technological innovation that we have never seen before in terms of pace.“We are in a situation where this technological advantage that we have relied on is likely to be eroded.”

“We have to work hard to continue to maintain this advantage.“Because there are opponents and competitors who are actively looking for their own technological advantages,” he added.

One of the technologies NATO is studying is seafloor mappingThe advocacy organization has invested in Dutch startup Lobster Robotics.

“If they had scanning equipment, they could have found or seen the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions.“I don’t know if they would be inclined to do anything about it, but at least they knew it was going to happen,” Stefan Rutten, co-founder and CEO of Lobster Robotics, tells Euronews Next.

lobster robots One of 44 selected companies Of the 1,300 people who applied to participate in NATO Startup Funding Programmeknown as North Atlantic Defense Innovation Acceleratoralso Diana.

Its mission is to find dual-use innovations and provide developers with resources worth several hundred thousand euros and the network they need to address critical defence and security challenges.

Dual use is one of the DIANA criteria, which means that Innovation can be used for commercial and social purposes, as well as for defence purposes.NATO also has a larger fund, the NATO Innovation Fund, to encourage start-ups.

technology Optical mapping of the seafloor by Lobster Robotics You can zoom in to see what’s on the sea floor, and even discover crab or starfish footprints on the sea floor.

It greatly reduces the cost of using diving equipment and is safer.But it can also be used in defense, especially for mapping critical underwater infrastructure, such as wind farms or oil platforms, where security is lacking.

Difficulties faced by this type of “start-up”

But getting into governments or defense ministries is lucrative, and for a startup, it’s hard to break in.”You have to know the people.. You have to know the people. “You have to know how the organization works,” says Rutten, adding that NATO’s “stamp of approval” helps the company work with governments.

“I urge governments to really think about the timeline for startups. They say it’s moving too fast. Then I heard that The acquisitions will only take another 18 months.… I I could have started five new companies by then.“he added.

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Another company is Greece-based Sortiria Technology. NATO’s chosen submarine intelligence Which acquisition period was also particularly long.

It is a deep tech startup developing AI detection technology for the defense industry.

“There are long contract cycles and the procurement process is intensive and also varies in each country.Angelos Tserklas, CEO of Sortiria Technology, says:

“But we see a lot of disruptions to this model, with Initiatives like DIANA Or the NATO Innovation Fund. But also from European Union And the European Investment Bank“Which supports dual-use applications,” he explains to Euronews Next.

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“We see this picture and we see an effort for a unified approach in the European Union and in NATO countries,” he added.

This month, NATO issued a call for a second round of the DIANA project, focusing on: Areas such as energythe human healththe Information Securitythe Logistics And the Critical infrastructure.

Information security, or cybersecurity, is a major concern for NATO, and many lessons can be learned from Ukraine, which has suffered a wave of sophisticated cyber attacks by Russia.

Cyber ​​wars and cyber attacks

In the Washington Summit Declaration, the Global Defense Alliance warned of Cyber ​​Threats from Russia and ChinaHe said that both countries could cooperate in a strategic partnership.

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NATO also announced at the summit that New Cyber ​​Alliancewhich will be called Integrated Cyber ​​Defense CenterThe centre will bring together civilian and military personnel from across the NATO organisation, Allied nations and industry experts.

One startup that has caught NATO’s attention is Hashemishwhich creates A safer and more efficient internet Which he calls the “new web.”

While this may take a decade or two to get off the ground, CEO Manu Fontaine said that “the natural path is to start developing services on an infrastructure that is intrinsically secure, that is intrinsically verified.”

Until then, the American company is developing. Express mail service Which he hopes NATO allies will use as part of a pilot project in 2025. “We can’t see what the infrastructure is doing,” Fontaine told Euronews Next.

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“We do not have access to the messages that are exchanged over it. The data is actually encrypted with keys that no human has access to.”

The Washington Summit Declaration also stated that NATO wanted to follow closely Technological Advancements on the Battlefield in UkraineIncluding through experimentation and faster adoption of emerging technologies.

For the CEO of Lobster Robotics, although public procurement is a “nightmare,” things are slowly changing.

“Many countries are now changing to become more flexible and open their arms more quickly to innovation, mainly because See how well it works in Ukraine“They’re doing new things every day and getting better,” says Rotten. “But I think it’s going to be a few years before we see that in action.”

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