Europe’s defence transformation must now be digital by design. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that while traditional platforms remain essential, operational advantage increasingly comes from the integration of digital and dual-use technologies - from AI-enabled decision-support and autonomous systems to secure cloud, resilient cyber infrastructure and real-time data fusion. The European Council’s call for a Defence Industry Transformation Roadmap presents a crucial opportunity to align Europe’s digital ambition with defence reality by embedding these technologies into capability planning and procurement from the outset, establishing shared standards for interoperability, and working more closely with industry, including commercial providers who’s secure, data-driven solutions already power critical systems. Europe will remain competitive only if it moves from fragmented efforts to coordinated, capability-driven digital transformation.
- Which digital technologies should Europe prioritise to stay operationally competitive?
- How can Europe ensure real interoperability across national and allied systems
- What stands in the way of a coordinated, digital-by-design defence transformation?
Executive Summary One consistent message of this panel was that the enabling layer of modern warfare, covering software, data fusion, autonomous systems and AI-enabled decision support, has already outpaced the institutions and procurement models governing European defence. General Fetter outlined Germany's three-line-of-effort framework, digital backbone, software-defined defence and data-AI, as concurrent and mutually reinforcing programmes, offering the most structured national account of systematic transformation. General Colagrande pointed to NATO's cloud adoption, innovation ranges and capability marketplace as early connective tissue for alliance-wide coordination, while acknowledging that common procurement remains the exception. Brian Moran's account of linking legacy and new systems within hours at a NATO exercise, and Balázs Nagy's outline of technical requirements for decentralised air defence, both made the same point: the technology exists. The barriers are culture, procurement speed, data governance and political will to enforce open architecture standards. The session closed with one-word answers that captured the consensus well: deliver now, at speed, with interoperability and sovereignty as reinforcing rather than competing objectives. Livestream Link: https://youtube.com/live/s1hHT68SdhA?feature=share
