The issue of emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT) has been trending in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) of late. The 2019 NATO Leaders Meeting in London set out an EDT Roadmap.1 The NATO 2030 Report cited EDT as a major area for focus and investment. In February 2021, defence ministers agreed in general terms on coordinating investment in EDT, strengthening relationships with private sector innovation hubs and creating foreign export protection mechanisms.2 NATO has set a headmark of developing policies on seven key EDT areas: artificial intelligence (AI), data, autonomy, biotechnology, hypersonic technology, quantum physics-based technologies, and space. The ministers also announced plans to complete specific AI and data strategies by summer 2021. The AI Strategy was released in August 2021.3
On 1st March 2021, NATO’s Advisory Group on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies released its first annual report with recommendations to create an internal agency based on the United States (US) Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that would group together existing centres, invest in new technology, and collaborate with allied innovation hubs in the public and private sectors. This would be backed by a NATO investment bank to fund innovation in EDT. Those recommendations were approved at the Brussels Summit.4 At the 2022 Madrid Summit, the allies established NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic to strengthen transatlantic collaboration on emerging technologies. Twenty three allies also committed to a €1 billion (£860 million) NATO Innovation Fund which began project support last year.
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