EDF 2026 — Military Multi-Domain Operations Cloud

Scope: Military operations require higher flexibility and mobility to gain and maintain the initiative. A collaborative, more efficient and digitised secure, cyber-resilient battlespace across land, air, maritime and space domains is key for information superiority, future mission management, spectrum dominance and smart decision support. The development of a common shared information space with a ‘cloud of clouds’ approach, leading to multi-domain operations cloud services, is therefore needed. The objective of this topic is to follow on and complement previous activities in the field of multi-domain operation cloud services and combine actual existing and future multi-level community-of-interest (COI) and COI-enabling services into a federated, multi-national service mesh. The aim is to enable and support multi-level situational awareness and command and control capabilities for multi-domain operations, therefore providing the capability for an improved battle rhythm for military operations in collaborative multi-domain warfare. Beyond defence technologies, this topic also contributes to the STEP objectives as defined in the STEP Regulation in the target investment area of deep and digital technologies. Targeted types of activities: Studies, design, system prototyping, testing and qualification, not excluding upstream and downstream activities eligible for development actions. Indicative budget: EUR 40 000 000 for this topic under the EDF-2026-DA call. Indicative number of proposals to be funded: One proposal is to be funded for this topic. However, depending on the quality of the proposals submitted and the budget available, more than one proposal may ultimately be funded for this topic.

Funds the first military multi-domain operational cloud prototype enabling secure operations across land, air, maritime, cyber, and space domains. Addresses fragmented military information systems through standards-based interoperability. Requires EU-secure data governance, chain-of-trust mechanisms, zero-trust architecture, and edge computing capabilities in degraded and contested environments. Must support AI-driven command infrastructure and interoperability with existing national C2 systems across EU member states.