NATO’s US$1.1B Fund for AI, Robotics, and Space Tech
A coalition of NATO partners has announced the initial group of businesses receiving financial support through the alliance’s one billion euro (US$1.1 billion) innovation fund.
The group revealed the fund in the summer of 2022, several months following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, vowing to put money into technologies aimed at improving its defense capabilities.
The investment is supported by 24 out of the 32 countries in NATO, such as Finland and Sweden, who became members of the alliance recently.
On Tuesday, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) announced that it had made direct investments in four European technology firms, stating that these investments would tackle issues related to defense, security, and resilience.
The government has set aside money for Fractile AI, a company in London that specializes in making computer chips for big language models (LLMs), such as those that operate ChatGPT, to increase their speed. Additionally, funding has been provided to Germany’s ARX Robotics, a firm that creates robots without human control, capable of tasks from lifting heavy objects to monitoring areas.
The remaining two companies were a British producer iCOMAT, specializing in creating lighter components for automobiles, and Space Forge, a company from Wales that utilizes the unique environments of space tech, like microgravity and the absence of air, to manufacture semiconductors while they are in space.
Andrea Traversone, the fund’s managing partner, said, “Enabling access to strategic technologies is key to securing a safe and prosperous future for the alliance’s one billion citizens.”
The investment group has also teamed up with private equity companies Alpine Space Ventures, OTB Ventures, Join Capital, and Vsquared Ventures to back additional funding in advanced technology across the continent.
