This draft European Defence Fund (EDF) 2026 expedited Development Action topic funds the creation of a first military multi-domain operational cloud (MDOC) prototype to enable faster, more resilient, and more secure multi-domain operations (MDO) across land, air, maritime, cyber and space. The call addresses a critical operational shortfall: information and data in military systems are still often siloed in subsystems connected by point-to-point interfaces, which limits sharing beyond a single platform type and leads to interoperability gaps and inconsistent situational pictures. In modern high-intensity conflict, where milliseconds can be decisive, information gaps and non-real-time reporting chains can have severe consequences. The topic therefore targets a standards-based approach to interoperability (e.g., NATO STANAGs and Federated Mission Networking (FMN) concepts), enabling shared and consistent situation data across domains and command levels.
In this call, “cloud” is not an external commercial infrastructure to connect to, but rather a deployment of networked military capabilities. Commercial cloud-native architectures are typically designed for reliable, wideband networks and stable infrastructure; however, tactical military environments often lack robust connectivity, especially at the highly mobile tactical edge and in contested electromagnetic environments. Accordingly, the MDOC concept must be adapted so that the digital infrastructure relies on its own strength when external dependencies fail, and so that separated infrastructures can recombine and resynchronise when connectivity returns. The MDOC is expected to exhibit critical attributes such as self-forming, self-healing, graceful degradation, and redundancy. It should support open, adaptive, scalable information services—from platform level to multiple headquarters levels—so that multi-domain command and control (C2) and operational agility (e.g., joint fire, situational awareness, re-synchronisation) improve across the full range of operations.
The specific objective is to build on and improve existing concept demonstrators for multinational multi-domain cloud efforts, particularly to address robust operations at the tactical edge under serious service degradation (including physical destruction of civilian IT infrastructure such as data centres and fixed/mobile networks). In such scenarios, the MDOC should enable data exchanges among sensors and effectors across different command components in the kill chain (simulated/emulated, or represented by digital twins if necessary). The proposal should combine existing and future multi-level community-of-interest (COI) and COI-enabling services into a federated, multinational service mesh capable of supporting multi-level situational awareness and C2 capabilities and improving the battle rhythm in collaborative multi-domain warfare.
The call requires delivery of a first combat cloud prototype that provides COI, COI-enabling, and core application services for synchronisation, consumption and use by connected applications. The targeted service set includes, among others: consolidated situation data services (real-time and non-real-time), IT-security services (including cyber defence), geodata and imagery services, catalogue/interface services, workflow and messaging services, data labelling and binding for federated system-wide data centric security (DCS) support, compatibility measures for zero-trust concepts (including resolving current contradictions between zero trust and DCS), and operation plan templates/operation plans. Proposals should define use cases from strategic to tactical levels; provide a unified service topology aligned with C3 taxonomy and FMN standards; provide hardware/software solutions at an appropriate technology readiness level; integrate solutions into current strategic C3 systems in an EU operational context; and identify interfaces with current and legacy tactical systems to ensure seamless interoperability from strategic to tactical level.
Within scope, proposals must design, implement, and demonstrate an operational MDOC prototype able to standardise services across the battlefield from strategic to tactical level in an “all-domain C2” environment. Testing must be based on a system demonstrator at TRL 5 or higher, and should cover the federation of airborne, ground, maritime, cyber, and space-access assets (including federation of assets from different operational domains). However, proposals should not develop C3 tools for planning, managing, or evaluating operations. Mandatory activities include studies (CONOPS review, edge technologies, architectural gap analysis, roadmap to operational readiness and accreditation strategy, and engineering documentation), design (final reference architecture, capability catalogue, data gateways for relevant military data formats, information security concepts including data labelling, federated CI/CD and governance process models), system prototyping, testing (KPIs such as latency/throughput/availability/fault recovery, test environment emulation, feedback collection, technical dossier), and qualification in crisis and war scenarios. Functional requirements stress maximum use of open-source solutions for sovereignty, EU/associated-country-controlled cloud service providers where used, resilient synchronisation under bandwidth constraints and disconnections, modular scalable “cloud of clouds” concepts (tactical edge, tactical fog, operational/strategic layers), automated orchestration beyond national infrastructures, recovery mechanisms, AI-supported information management, and compliance with commonly applicable interoperability standards. The topic also contributes to STEP objectives in deep and digital technologies.
Expected impacts include developing and integrating a European collaborative MDOC that provides information superiority; enabling consistent situation data across domains to avoid mismatches caused by differing service-layer data models; providing inputs for follow-on multilateral development; validating operational cloud services and identifying further R&D needs; delivering decentralised combat cloud architectures at tactical level (high-performance edge processing under SWaP constraints) and decentralised military cloud architectures at strategic level; boosting Europe’s military and technological sovereignty; and strengthening the EU contribution to NATO/FMNs interoperability initiatives.
Opening: 22.01.2026
Deadline(s): 29.09.2026
