The Arctic is where NATO’s AI stack is being built
NATO’s next command-and-control architecture may be emerging at Europe’s northern edge. From simulation work to uncrewed-systems trials, allies are testing how artificial intelligence, sensors and autonomous platforms can be joined into a single operational chain.
As NATO in June announced that its Palantir-based Maven Smart System command platform had achieved full operational capability, a group of allied operators started experimenting with uncrewed systems trials off the coast of Iceland.
The group, called Task Force X-Arctic, is the technology-experimentation arm of Arctic Sentry, led by Joint Force Command Norfolk (U.S., UK, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) which coordinates allied exercises, presence and deterrence in the Arctic.
At the same time, on the shores of some of Norway’s longest and deepest fjords, a group of startup founders were taking their first steps towards integrating their simulation and decision-support solutions into Maven, the Pentagon-initiated command and targeting platform built by Palantir.
While most of European NATO is still holding its breath, a handful of nations are coming together to birth what looks to become the first command-and-control system for NATO’s new defence technologies.
The launch of TFX-Arctic comes just two weeks after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Sweden’s Helsingborg signed an agreement for a bilateral technology transfer deal in artificial intelligence and defence innovation. With this, Sweden became only the second country to sign the so-called Technology Prosperity Deal after the UK, accelerating transatlantic defence industrial collaboration.
The pattern is clear. Arctic security is increasingly tied to allied software integration and industrial access. But let’s get back to the small decision-support startup in Bergen.
Just weeks after announcing the NATO Maven Smart System as operational, the Allied Command Operations, the body responsible for the planning and execution of allied operations, selected ten startups to accelerate the integration of technologies that help allied decision-making in increasingly complex scenarios.
The Nordics Are Showing up
While ACO is the top-level NATO umbrella, one thing is telling. Of the 10 decision-making providers, four are U.S., two from the UK and one each from Czechia, Slovenia, Türkiye and Norway. Nothing from Germany and France.
In parallel to all this, NATO ran a simulation where Russia launched two simultaneous hybrid attacks, one against Norway in Svalbard and the other against Estonia. While the simulation wasn’t plugged into Maven yet, the purpose of it was to identify additional platforms that could form an actual training and command system for allied Arctic defence.
In Bergen, the startup flirting with Maven, is developing solutions exactly for this: Scenarios for Arctic naval warfare and Baltic undersea infrastructure sabotage adding artificial intelligence as it develops its models. As a part of a U.S. and Norway-led project called SAS-219, Norway is helping study what-if scenarios that may lead to an Arctic conflict with Russia and China.
Why is all this relevant for Europe’s defence? Because it has a procurement dimension that could have effects on what technologies will be used in Europe’s new defence.
Now, let’s build a hypothetical operational technology stack for an Arctic scenario. It all begins with the NATO Maven Smart System command platform. There, intelligence is gathered from data providers, such as satellites and surveillance drones. This information is then processed by simulation and decision layers such as Levato’s Vantage, the Bergen startup. And when that runs seamlessly, actionable layers such as Nordic Air Defence’s drone interceptors can be added to close the chain: Detect, Make Sense, Decide and Act.
With inhouse solutions from the Nordics and UK, JFC Norfolk is now on its way in building NATO’s first plug-and-play technology warfare portfolio that helps leaders think about meaningful new defence procurement by 2029.
Greenland as the Catalyst
This is the Nordic countries’ and the United Kingdom’s response to U.S. pressure after Donald Trump intensified demands in January to acquire Denmark’s Greenland. Only a month later, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte launched Arctic Sentry, also led by JFC Norfolk.
Since then things have accelerated. In the six months after that, Sweden signed the U.S. defence technology transfer deal, Maven reached capability for classified networks and TFX-Arctic initiated the integration process of additional uncrewed systems.
While still in its early stages, the U.S. and Europe are now showing actual commitment towards common defence technology interests. U.S. pressure is bearing fruit and investors are seeing this. In July, Agon — founded by Anduril and Cambridge Aerospace alumni — raised $30 million to train autonomous weapons in virtual battlefields, initially within the counter-drone space.
The urgency to demonstrate credible Arctic capability accelerated European operational technology rollout and experimentation. It created the political space for the emerging Nordic and UK cluster of startups and decision-support tools to be plugged into Maven.
As a result, the Arctic is becoming NATO’s test laboratory for AI-enabled warfare, but laboratories also set standards. If Maven and related platforms become the default interface through which allied forces see, assess and act, today’s experiments in the Arctic may shape Europe’s defence market for decades.
Dr. Jonas Dromberg is the founder and principal at Revalence Ventures, an early investor in Nordic Air Defence. Based in Helsinki and Stockholm, he has spent more than two decades in venture capital and finance. A former Bloomberg bureau chief, Jonas served as venture partner at one of the top Nordic venture funds and received his doctorate at IE Business School in Madrid researching VC limited partners and family offices. He is a member of the European and AUKUS defense investor networks.
