AI and Digital Twins: Key to European Defense

Digital Sovereignty: A Strategic Challenge for Defense

Digital sovereignty, long discussed in terms of resilience and strategic autonomy, has become an imperative for the defense sector in Europe. In a context of reevaluating strategic alliances, it is no longer just a political goal but an essential requirement for global security. Artificial intelligence (AI) and digital twins are at the heart of this transformation, offering a comprehensive view of organizations.

In the face of an uncertain geopolitical context, the global security architecture is preparing for increased tensions. NATO's military spending is expected to exceed $2.42 trillion by 2026, a figure that continues to rise. In the United States, the goal is to deploy the most powerful and technologically advanced military in the world, supported by a robust industrial base. In France, the Military Programming Law 2024-2030 plans to increase the defense budget from €32.3 billion in 2017 to €50.5 billion in 2025, aiming to reach €67.4 billion by 2030. This aims to accelerate France's rearmament to pivot towards high intensity. European countries are increasing their defense budgets and must now translate these financial commitments into operational capabilities.

Technological Autonomy as a Foundation

To successfully carry out this transformation, industry professionals must develop a technological foundation that enables intelligent operations based on digital sovereignty. In a context where historical partnerships between nations are being questioned, mastering technological infrastructure becomes an indispensable foundation of any defense strategy. Only under this condition can European powers empower individuals, organizations, and national leaders to innovate, optimize, and share resources while collaborating on a large scale.

Digital sovereignty emerges as a strategic priority for states, organizations, and critical industries. It relies on the ability of economic and institutional actors to maintain control over their data, systems, and, more broadly, their digital future. Technology must thus contribute to strengthening democratic principles by expanding the capacity of citizens, businesses, and nations to decide, act, and innovate with full awareness. This means prioritizing transparency over opacity, accountability over convenience, and choice over dependency, while firmly opposing the use of technology, data, and infrastructure as tools of coercion or control.

Digital Twins and AI: Towards Interoperable Defense

For over a decade, the most advanced organizations have relied on the creation of operational digital twins to better understand the actual functioning of their processes and, therefore, their business. This approach allows for the analysis of operations as they are executed, adapting them to evolving constraints while sustainably improving operational performance, enabling organizations to rethink their processes to adapt to the situation and achieve the best possible outcomes in their mission.

The emergence of this technology, along with a controlled management of its data, forms an essential foundation for the effective integration of artificial intelligence into operations. By providing the necessary operational context, digital twins give AI the context it needs to enable a strategic deployment that is seamless and coherent with existing systems, while ensuring performance management and measuring return on investment.

In the defense sectors, this evolution translates into the increasing adoption of European platforms capable of integrating and contextualizing data from multiple systems. These open approaches promote the acceleration of strategic autonomy in military and industrial operations while allowing organizations to better anticipate and respond to constantly evolving threat environments.

The digital transformation at the European scale enhances industrial resilience through end-to-end visibility over supply chains, leading to reduced disruptions and improved control over timelines while optimizing complex logistics cycles and MRO cycles to enhance resource availability and operational capacity.

Building Resilience in an Uncertain World

Digital sovereignty is often mistakenly interpreted as an isolationist attitude: a wall erected around data to confine it within national borders. However, in the current geopolitical context, this type of siloed approach can quickly become a vulnerability. True sovereignty is a matter of autonomy: the freedom to decide how we act, how we innovate, and how we collaborate, both at the national and European levels. It is the power of choice.

Our most critical challenges will never be solved by siloed intelligences. That is why we believe that European digital sovereignty must be shared rather than isolated. It serves as the bridge to maintain control over our digital destiny while building the secure interoperable ecosystems necessary for collective defense. Modern defense is inherently multilateral. This requires us to apply our values consistently, both to ourselves and to our partners and competitors. It is when these values are put to the test, and not when they are convenient for us, that they truly matter. Establishing this open ecosystem, based on common standards, mutual interest, and respect for the dignity of all, is not just a strategic option but the foundation upon which the security of tomorrow must rest.