The French armed forces are undergoing a veritable industrial and cognitive revolution. Faced with a "tsunami of data", in the words of the Air Force General Ferletformer Director of Military Intelligence, the French Ministry of Defence has no choice but to modernise its infrastructure and take full advantage of digital resources.
In recent years, a number of structures have been set up to support this transition: Direction générale du numérique (DGNUM), Defence Innovation Agency (AID), and more recently theAMIADa ministerial agency dedicated to artificial intelligence for defence.
The aim is clear: to develop sovereign artificial intelligence, designed specifically to meet military needs. France intends to "take the lead to become one of the European and world leaders" in this field, declared Sébastien Lecornu, Minister for the Armed Forces, at the Summit for action on artificial intelligence.
"Digital sovereignty is a security issue".
This ambition is part of a wider drive to regain digital sovereignty, a concept that is gradually emerging as a strategic issue in its own right. At the Paris Defence and Strategy Forum (PDSF) 2025, Clotilde Bômont - a doctor in political geography at Panthéon-Sorbonne University and head of technological, digital and cyber research at the European Union Institute for Security Studies - looks back at a major turning point:
"In February 2018, the notion of digital sovereignty appeared for the first time in the Cyber Defence Strategic Review. It was at this point that the idea really took hold, marking a realisation that digital sovereignty is not just about economic issues, but also major security considerations."
Intelligence in the age of Big Data and AI
Faced with the explosion of data generated by the increasingly interconnected and high-performance sensors on military equipment, the armed forces are faced with a strategic challenge: exploiting, analysing and correlating massive flows of information to provide forces with real-time decision-making elements.
It was against this backdrop that the Artemis programme (Architecture de Traitement et d'Exploitation Massive de l'Information multi-Source), a key project supported by the Defence Digital Agency (AND). Its ambition is to provide the Ministry of the Armed Forces with a sovereign, secure and interoperable solution for massive data processing (big data) and artificial intelligence.
Launched in collaboration with a broad industrial ecosystem - including start-ups, SMEs, major groups and academic players - Artemis.IA has already taken a decisive first step. The initial phases have enabled technological choices to be validated with end-users, while structuring a network of strategic partners.
This ambition is in line with the 2024-2030 military programming law, which provides for a total of 2 billion euros dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence technologies. An investment that is equal to the geopolitical, technological and operational challenges of tomorrow.
Digital technologies for military operations
Digital technology is now at the heart of defence strategy. Artificial intelligence is becoming an essential lever, particularly in the context of the Future Air Combat System (SCAF). This programme aims to help pilots manage massive data in real time, by combining computing power with human contextual analysis. The aim is to enhance man-machine cooperation and speed up decision-making on the battlefield.
For Clotilde Bômont, this programme will enable us to "design a macrosystem capable of integrating a complete network of UAVs and a robust cloud architecture, in order to connect in real time all the elements deployed in the theatre of operations".
Pillar of this transformation : the defence cloud. This sovereign cloud will enable the Ministry's critical data to be hosted securely, whether for armaments, administration or the conduct of operations.
A supercomputer A classified data centre, due to open in autumn 2025, will complete this infrastructure. Disconnected from the Internet, it will provide France with sovereign processing capacity for sensitive data, with maintenance carried out exclusively by authorised personnel.
"Sovereign control of these technologies
And finally.., blockchain is emerging as a strategic technology. Thanks to its ability to store data immutably, it guarantees total traceability and strengthens cyber security. Used as a distributed register, it can be used to authenticate logistics operations, trace supply chains and secure information exchanges without going through a single control centre. Trials are currently underway to integrate it into maintenance processes or the protection of inter-army digital identities.
The digital transformation of the French armed forces is based above all on a collective dynamic. Major industrial groups and start-ups are mobilised. However, France is still lagging behind powers such as the United States, China and Israel, which have long been investing in military AI.
In 2019, Florence ParlySébastien Lecornu, then Minister for the Armed Forces, was already stressing the need to build "a high-performance, robust and controlled AI, so that we are never overtaken by the enemy". The current Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, underlines that the challenge is not limited to technological performance alone: for France, it is above all a question of "mastering these technologies with sovereignty so as not to be dependent on other powers".
"A European approach is essential".
With this in mind, Clotilde Bômont stresses the importance of an integrated, multi-scale approach: "If we want our industrial ecosystem to remain competitive on a national and European scale, it is essential to think on a regional scale, if only in terms of markets. She adds:
"On the regulatory front, it is just as crucial to adopt a European approach, in order to assert ourselves on the international stage and, potentially, to counter the extraterritoriality of certain foreign laws, particularly American ones."
Read Clotilde Bômont's speech at the PDSF 2025 on the "Connectivity Wars":
