Indra develops core capabilities to manage autonomous AI agents in support of military operations in European cyberspace

The digitisation of the battlefield, new threats such as drones and the growing importance of automation in systems embedded in air, land and naval platforms have increased the risks and opportunities inherent in military action in cyberspace during operations.

The AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Deployable Agent) project is developing a comprehensive environment that will enable the assembly, training, configuration, testing, deployment and operation of autonomous agents based on artificial intelligence capable of reducing the need for human intervention in cyberspace and shortening decision-making cycles to gain an advantage over the enemy. With a budget of €32 million, AIDA is funded by the European Defence Fund.

By detecting cyber threats, analysing them and responding autonomously or by assisting human operators in their decision-making, intelligent agents will support, both in and through cyberspace, the various combat functions in the digitalised battlefield, such as movement and manoeuvring, intelligence, fire, sustainment, command and control, protection and information.

Indra is one of the main partners in the consortium, and the only representative of Spanish industry, which is carrying out the project, made up of 28 companies, start-ups and research centres from 15 EU countries. The company is leading the core capability that will support this pioneering approach in Europe, being responsible for the global technological infrastructure of the agents, which will enable their deployment, monitoring and recovery through a flexible and resilient platform. To this end, Indra will use IndraMind, its intelligence platform for critical and multi-domain operations, which facilitates the development of these capabilities in a sovereign and secure manner.

Indra will provide the project with cyber situational awareness capabilities, integrate the functionality of the agents with command and control processes, and coordinate the only demonstration case that will use the agents in military operations in cyberspace. This case will be supported by a demonstrator in Spain that will explore the advantage these agents offer to the Spanish cyber combat system (SCOMCE).

The centralised platform developed by Indra will not only allow these intelligent autonomous agents to operate independently, but also to be integrated as pieces within a large cyber mosaic of elements with distributed, collaborative and swarm capabilities within the military networks of European armies. Indra's infrastructure will connect to the different levels of the mosaic to ensure seamless interoperability and provide a comprehensive view of cyber defence operations.

Indra is currently leading the development of this European cyber mosaic, within the framework of the EU-GUARDIAN European Defence Fund project, which will undergo its first proof of concept tests at the end of 2025 and for which AIDA's contribution is expected to be fundamental.

"We have evolved from network-centric warfare to decision-centric warfare, where the advantage on the battlefield lies in acquiring cognitive superiority to decide faster and more effectively, while creating constant dilemmas for the enemy to complicate and slow down their decision-making cycle. Automation, distributed action, continuous learning and Artificial Intelligence are some of the pillars that will cement the advantages of our combat forces over those of the enemy. In this sense, the AIDA project explores on an unprecedented scale in Europe the advantages that AI and automation will offer in the operation of cyberspace as the fifth domain of battle," explains Luis José García de la Iglesia, head of Cyber Defence at Indra.

AIDA is the first European Defence Fund project to support NATO's concept of the Autonomous Intelligent Cyber Defence Agent (AICA) for active, autonomous and intelligent cyber defence. This is a unique project, as 28 companies from 15 countries are working closely together to significantly increase European defence AI capabilities and promote the competitive advantage of European companies, helping to create stronger defence capabilities.

The AIDA project is also a new example of Indra's significant presence in large consortia that are developing the future capabilities and systems with which Europe will ensure its sovereignty and capacity to intervene in highly digitised theatres of operations, with increasingly intelligent platforms and solutions to counter emerging threats.

In the field of cyber defence, Indra has led the ECYSAP project, the largest cyber situational awareness project for defence in Europe, which has developed a cyber defence platform for the real-time acquisition of cyber situational awareness in military operations. It also leads the aforementioned EU-GUARDIAN project and ECYSAP EYE, the continuation of ECYSAP. Indra is thus at the forefront of the development of these capabilities on the continent, in line with one of the objectives set out in its strategic plan ‘Leading the Future’ to become the Spanish coordinator in European cyberspace programmes.