Evolution
NATO has been supporting innovation, each in Allied armed forces and in its personal capabilities, for the reason that Alliance was based in 1949. However, the accelerating tempo of rising and disruptive applied sciences (EDTs) is creating fast and large-scale adjustments – not solely in on a regular basis life, but in addition in safety and defence. The timeline beneath lays out milestones within the growth of NATO’s EDT-related insurance policies.
December 2019 – NATO Leaders agree an Emerging and Disruptive Technology Implementation Roadmap with seven authentic EDT areas: information, AI, autonomy, quantum applied sciences, biotechnology and human enhancement applied sciences, hypersonic applied sciences and area. The function of this roadmap is to assist construction NATO’s work throughout key technology areas and allow Allies to think about the implications of those applied sciences, as an example for deterrence and defence, and functionality growth.
December 2019 – NATO Leaders declare area to be a fifth operational area, alongside air, land, maritime and our on-line world. This follows the adoption of NATO’s overarching Space Policy, which was agreed by Allied Defence Ministers in June 2019.
December 2019 – NATO Leaders ask Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to guide a forward-looking reflection course of to strengthen NATO each militarily and politically and to undertake a extra world strategy for the Alliance. Over the following months, this takes form because the NATO 2030 initiative.
June 2020 – Following session with Allied parliamentarians, civil society, public and non-public sector consultants, and younger leaders, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg lays out his priorities for NATO 2030. This features a deal with innovation and essential applied sciences to be sure that the Alliance stays able to face tomorrow’s challenges. The Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the NATO Innovation Fund start to take form as key pillars of the NATO 2030 agenda.
July 2020 – The Secretary General establishes the primary NATO Advisory Group on EDTs. The group consists of 12 exterior consultants from the non-public sector and academia, from nations throughout the Alliance. These consultants present recommendation to NATO on the adoption of latest applied sciences and different facets of innovation, together with training, financing and innovation ecosystems.
September 2020 – The 2020-2022 NATO Advisory Group on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies presents recommendations to the NATO Innovation Board, together with on modern applied sciences that NATO must be pursuing as a precedence.
February 2021 – NATO Defence Ministers endorse NATO’s Coherent Implementation Strategy on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, with a deal with the seven EDT areas from the 2019 EDT Implementation Roadmap.
March 2021 – The NATO Advisory Group on EDTs publishes its first annual report (for the 12 months 2020), offering 4 key suggestions for NATO: enhance technology literacy all through the Organization; set up a community of Innovation Centres; design and facilitate new financing mechanisms for innovation with non-public sector entities, each small and giant; and create innovation partnership initiatives with exterior EDT stakeholders from business and academia.
June 2021 – At the 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO Leaders agree the NATO 2030 agenda to make sure the Alliance can face the challenges of at the moment and tomorrow, together with by sharpening NATO’s technological edge. As a part of the NATO 2030 agenda, additionally they comply with launch DIANA and to ascertain the NATO Innovation Fund.
October 2021 – NATO Defence Ministers endorse NATO’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy, setting out how the Alliance goals to adapt AI to satisfy operational necessities, and to speed up and mainstream the safe and reliable integration of AI throughout a spread of Alliance capabilities. Ministers additionally endorse the Data Exploitation Framework Policy. Seventeen Allies sign up to develop the framework for the NATO Innovation Fund, and to ascertain the way it will work in apply.
February 2022 – NATO Defence Ministers endorse the primary Annual Report on Innovation and EDTs, defining new actions to reinforce NATO’s technological readiness, together with by including two new EDT areas: novel supplies and manufacturing, in addition to power and propulsion.
April 2022 – NATO Foreign Ministers endorse the charter for DIANA, which outlines its mission and technique; authorized authorities; monetary mechanism; governance; and the regional workplaces, accelerator websites and take a look at centres that may make up its preliminary footprint. Foreign Ministers from 21 Allies agree the framework for the NATO Innovation Fund.
April 2022 – The NATO Advisory Group on EDTs delivers its second annual report (for the 12 months 2021), inspecting three essential, ongoing work strands geared toward enabling NATO and Allies to undertake new applied sciences at tempo and keep a technological edge: DIANA, the NATO Innovation Fund and the Human Capital Innovation Policy (which incorporates suggestions for NATO on how you can entice, retain and develop gifted workers with technical expertise and innovation mindsets).
June 2022 – At the 2022 Madrid Summit, leaders from 22 Allied nations commit to participating in the NATO Innovation Fund. (Finland and Sweden turned the twenty third and twenty fourth collaborating nations following their accessions to NATO in April 2023 and March 2024 respectively.) Separately, NATO Leaders unveil DIANA’s up to date preliminary footprint of take a look at centres and accelerator websites throughout the Alliance.
October 2022 – NATO Defence Ministers endorse NATO’s Autonomy Implementation Plan and the establishment of NATO’s Data and Artificial Intelligence Review Board. The Data and Artificial Intelligence Review Board serves to operationalise NATO’s Principles of Responsible Use of AI, as set out in NATO’s AI Strategy. The Autonomy Implementation Plan drives a coherent strategy to NATO’s autonomy safety and growth efforts according to the Alliance’s norms, values and dedication to worldwide legislation.
February 2023 – NATO Defence Ministers endorse the second Annual Report on Innovation and EDTs, which outlines NATO’s strategy to fostering and defending EDTs in 2023. The Report provides next-generation communications networks as a brand new EDT space and determines that information has been sufficiently mainstreamed into NATO traces of effort, together with information exploitation and digital transformation, to not be thought-about a standalone EDT space.
February 2023 – NATO’s Data and Artificial Intelligence Review Board (DARB) meets for the first time to start out the event of a user-friendly Responsible AI certification commonplace.
February 2023 – NATO pronounces plans to ascertain the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space (APSS) initiative to reinforce space-based surveillance and intelligence for the Alliance, which can enhance situational consciousness and decision-making processes.
March 2023 – DIANA opens its first regional office, on the Imperial College London Innovation Hub in London, United Kingdom.
June 2023 – DIANA launches its first three pilot challenge programmes, inviting innovators to use to its programmes.
July-August 2023 – The NATO Innovation Fund appoints the investment team that may handle the EUR 1 billion enterprise capital fund, and confirms the participation of 23 NATO Allies as Limited Partners (changing into 24 when Sweden joins the Alliance in March 2024).
November 2023 – Allied Foreign Ministers approve NATO’s Quantum Technologies Strategy.
November 2023 – DIANA announces its first cohort of innovators, having chosen 44 corporations from over 1,300 candidates to hitch its accelerator programme.
March 2024 – DIANA doubles the size of its network of accelerator sites and test centres. DIANA’s community will now comprise 23 accelerator websites (up from 11) and 182 take a look at centres (up from 90) in 28 Allied nations, augmenting DIANA’s capability to assist innovators from throughout the Alliance as they develop their applied sciences.
April 2024 – NATO Defence Ministers endorse NATO’s Biotechnology and Human Enhancement Technologies Strategy.
July 2024 – At the 2024 Washington Summit, Allied Leaders endorse NATO’s revised Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy, which builds on the AI Strategy revealed in 2021 and takes account of latest advances in AI applied sciences, comparable to generative AI and AI-enabled info instruments.
July 2024 – The NATO 2024 EDT Annual Report (masking 2023-2024) units the course for the Alliance to develop a “NATO Rapid Adoption Action Plan” in time for the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague.
July 2024 – At a gathering of the NATO-Ukraine Council through the 2024 Washington Summit, NATO and Ukraine launch new joint actions to assist Ukraine’s self-defence by the primary NATO-Ukraine Innovation Cooperation Roadmap.
June 2025 – At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, Allied Leaders endorse NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan to speed up the tempo at which the Alliance adopts new applied sciences and improve the manufacturing capability of Allied innovation ecosystems.
June 2025 – At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, six NATO Allies (Estonia, Finland, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Sweden) signal a Letter of Intent to ascertain the NATO Innovation Ranges community.
November 2025 – During Deputy Secretary General Radmila Shekerinska’s go to to Kyiv, NATO launches the UNITE – Brave NATO programme with Ukraine, dedicating as much as EUR 50 million to joint innovation competitions between NATO and Ukraine.
December 2025 – NATO’s Innovation Range for future connectivity in Finland launches the primary NATO Innovation Range occasion, a technology demonstration in assist of NATO Allied Land Command (LANDCOM).
March 2026 – NATO and Ukraine launch the interactive UNITE – Brave NATO web portal and lay out the steps for business to take part within the first innovation competitors, which is offering contract awards of EUR 10 million to satisfy pressing air defence and counter-uncrewed aerial system (UAS) challenges.
March 2026 – NATO’s Innovation Range for uncrewed techniques in Latvia launches its first Testing, Evaluation, Validation and Verification (TEVV) campaign.
July 2026 – At the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, Allied Leaders endorse the NATO Innovation Scale-Up Package, which incorporates the first public demand signal to business and innovation ecosystems throughout the Alliance; a Call to Action to private capital providers; and the launch of the NATO Engine. They additionally launch NATO’s Drone Edge to broaden counter-drone capabilities.
July 2026 – NATO launches the pilot Innovative Solutions Catalogue, itemizing related obtainable and scalable new technological merchandise for Allies to think about as they procure capabilities.