Artificial Intelligence is on NATO’s Side

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a group of 29 countries from Europe and North America. NATO constitutes a system of collective security whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. Three NATO members, namely the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto. They are also the official nuclear-weapon states.

As every other organization has identified the need for digitization, NATO also believes in incorporating artificial intelligence in its decision-making process. The 68-year-old military alliance is committed to exploring technological advancements with the effective mobilization of data and human capital among the key areas of focus, so as to make way for effective decision-making.

Here’s how NATO plans to use artificial intelligence:

1. Big data approach

As is the case with most fields, the defence industry also holds a vast amount of data that could be used to optimize and improve tactics and strategies. NATO consists of data about 29 countries, which can be complex to analyse. Manually analyzing this data would be exhausting and time-consuming. Here is where big data analytics and AI can come to play a major role.

Time is one of the most valuable resources and AI would enable the organization to access and work with massive sets of data without restriction. Rather than relying on representative data samples, data scientists can rely on the data itself, in all of its granularity, nuance, and detail, allowing them to take real-time effective and quick decisions.

2. Cloud computing architecture

General Denis Mercier, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander of Transformation, said that NATO wants to incorporate artificial intelligence for creating ‘cloud-like architecture’, essentially enabling cloud computing.

Cloud computing allows users and enterprises with various computing capabilities to store and process data in either a privately-owned cloud, or on a third-party server located in a data centre, which helps make data accessing mechanisms more efficient and reliable.  Cloud computing will allow NATO to share resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, similar to a utility.

3. Anti-access area denial systems

Anti-access area denial systems are global defence structures designed to destroy or prevent enemy forces from entering land, sea or air spaces. With artificial intelligence, NATO can find a solution to the key issue of distribution of data, allowing it to empower subordinate levels of command, when it's necessary to take action.

4. Strategic verdicts on key issues

As strange as it may sound, NATO is considering using AI as a tool to help render decisions on important matters. As any decision-making process can be bogged down due to indecisiveness and people being persuaded to vote differently than expected, this concept has been flawed for many decades now, yet there never seems to be a feasible way of resolving these issues.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization acknowledges that now is a good time to experiment with other types of technology in the decision-making process. This will allow the organization to take important decisions without the chance of human error.

More and more organizations and industries are opting for the data science path to improve their important functions and procedures. From big data analytics to AI, the field of data science is revolutionizing the world as we know it. No wonder now is a great time to be a part of this revolution!

What other cool applications of AI are you aware of? Tell us in the comments!