Security and Defence

The current security and defence landscape requires interoperable, trustworthy, and data-centric solutions. These must uphold EU ethical and societal values while addressing cyber, physical, and hybrid threats across Europe.

Building on the EU Security Union Strategy (2020–2025), the European Commission published the ProtectEU Internal Security Strategy in April 2025. While maintaining similar overarching objectives, the new strategy responds to emerging challenges driven by rapid technological developments, particularly the widespread adoption of AI.

Both strategies are reflected in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan (2025–2027), which defines key expected impacts:

• Reducing losses from disasters and crises

• Increasing resilience of critical infrastructure

• Enhancing cybersecurity

• Improving law-enforcement effectiveness

• Facilitating secure border management and lawful movement

The state of the art in the areas of Big Data, AI and HPC will significantly contribute to and play a key role in achieving these impacts and in supporting the EU agenda on security and defence. The BDVA aims to guide future trends and define roadmaps for defence-related data-centric technologies. It also seeks to reduce fragmentation and promote a cohesive ecosystem that fosters trust among practitioners in the use and sharing of data. This, in turn, will support long-term AI innovation, adoption, and uptake.

The BDVA community working in security and defence will address the challenges arising from the widespread adoption of AI across key security and defence domains, including use cases involving law enforcement authorities, critical infrastructure operators, national defence forces, first responders, disaster management authorities, and others.

BDVA’s Task Forces meet regularly, discussing the latest updates from the ecosystem, collaborating on publications, and organising events. Check out BDVA’s activities and make sure to stay tuned!