NATO Signs €200 Million Contract with Accenture and Leonardo to Build Secure Cloud

en.Wedoany.com Reported - NATO's technology arm has signed a contract worth approximately €200 million with Accenture and Italy's Leonardo to build a classified cloud environment called the "Protected Business Network." Accenture announced the agreement on Tuesday at the NATO summit in Ankara. The system is designed to provide NATO commanders and staff with a unified cloud platform, enabling them to share data and coordinate operations across all domains, with the core goal of building a resilient system that can remain operational even under attack.

Under the agreement, Accenture and Leonardo will jointly design, build, and operate the core platform over the next seven years, based on a multi-cloud architecture provided by NATO bodies. This platform will serve approximately 29,000 NATO users and has been approved by the North Atlantic Council as an alliance-level capability. The initiative aims to replace NATO's existing network architecture, which is a patchwork of legacy systems, with a common cloud model and standardized engineering, enabling faster deployment of new digital services. Leonardo will bring a Zero Trust security design and its autonomous AI multi-agent platform for cyber defense to the project.

The project is led by Accenture's EMEA division (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and the Italian defense group Leonardo, rather than U.S. contractors. This arrangement aligns with Europe's push to independently own defense software and secure military clouds, reducing reliance on American suppliers. The project launches at a critical time, as allied nations face pressure to divest from untrusted equipment and rebuild their own networks, with a localized cloud backbone seen as part of the solution. As defense increasingly becomes a software issue, NATO believes a modernized cloud system will enable faster operations, stronger resistance to attacks, and European control. Funding is flowing into European defense technology, and construction has already begun. The true test will come when an attack occurs.