The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) hosted an industry engagement event in Brussels, Belgium, for the implementation of NATO’s Protected Business Network (PBN) capability, with a focus on Project 0, which is the first step towards enabling the entire capability.
Over 200 companies were nominated by 21 NATO Nations for this engagement. With more than 400 attendees participating on-site and online, the aim of the event was two-fold: to gather industry feedback on the feasibility of NCIA’s proposed project timeline and process, and to inform industry on how to effectively respond to the competitive process that will soon be released by the Agency. This business opportunity at the current stage of development may entail awards for up to 200 million EUR.
As part of NATO’s broader digital transformation, NCIA’s PBN capability aims to provide a single unified network across the entire Alliance, up to the classification level of NATO Restricted. This transformative break-through will enable greater device mobility and portability, reduce the reliance on physical data centres in favour of cloud solutions, and strengthen the Alliance’s resilience against cyber threats.
This event attested to the value placed by NCIA on early engagement with industry. As NCIA General Manager Ludwig Decamps explained, “we want to engage industry much earlier in the process so that we better understand what industry has to offer and industry has a better understanding of what we require.” As an example of this, the first industry conference on the PBN Capability was held back in December 2023, in the format of a market research from which industry recommendations were subsequently incorporated into NCIA’s strategy.
