Latvia launches AlliedTechLabs defence technology centre
Partners from the FutureG Office within the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (U.S. Department of War), and NestAI, a European AI lab for defence, joined Latvian officials at a ceremony at the Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia to launch AlliedTechLabs, a public-private initiative creating a new international technology development and validation centre for defence and dual-use technologies in Latvia.
AlliedTechLabs will serve as a dedicated platform to develop, test, and accelerate technologies that strengthen the capabilities of Latvia and its Allies. By bringing together international academia and industry partners, the centre aims to bridge the gap between laboratory research and field-ready solutions.
“In Latvia, we must be able not only to acquire technologies developed elsewhere, but to develop, test, and turn our own innovations into competitive products. AlliedTechLabs is an important step in that direction, creating an international environment in Latvia where the expertise of our companies and researchers connects with the knowledge, experience, and needs of our Allies. It gives us an opportunity to jointly develop and test new defence and dual-use solutions in real-world conditions. The benefits are clear: stronger defence capabilities for Latvia and our Allies, new opportunities for Latvian technology companies, and high-value products that can compete in global markets,” underlines Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs.
Building on Latvia’s experience hosting NATO’s Digital Backbone eXperimentation (DiBaX) since 2022, AlliedTechLabs will provide realistic test environments for NATO, Allied operators, and industry to evaluate integrated systems against real-world challenges. The centre will focus on next-generation 5G/6G networks, sensing and signal processing, AI, edge computing, and integrated communications. Beyond research and development, AlliedTechLabs will connect Latvian technology developers to the Allied Tech Stack and to EU, NATO and US 6G initiatives, providing independent expertise to guide government investment and standardisation efforts.
“Future conflict environments demand resilient, software-driven networks capable of delivering real-time data to the tactical edge,” says Dr Thomas Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG, Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering. “Initiatives like AlliedTechLabs are essential for breaking open legacy architectures and driving transparent, standard-aligned 5G and 6G technologies. Working shoulder-to-shoulder with our Baltic and European Allies accelerates the deployment of secure, commercial-grade wireless capabilities directly into mission-critical environments.”
The announcement ceremony marked the first public presentation of AlliedTechLabs’ strategic roadmap. The new centre will be established as a dedicated unit within the Institute of Electronics and Computer Science (EDI), backed by LMT Group, Latvia’s Ministry of Defence, Latvia’s Ministry of Education and Science, and the Riga City Council. As part of the launch, LMT Group, EDI and NestAI signed a Memorandum of Understanding, setting out steps toward NestAI’s intended contribution of up to €1M over three years as a strategic industry partner of the centre. NestAI builds NestOS, the adaptive operating system for modern battlefield operations, and works with European defence forces, including the Finnish Defence Forces.
The launch brought together government, NATO, and industry representatives from Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and the United States. Several of the technology companies present are in discussions on joining AlliedTechLabs as industry partners.
“European defence AI will only be competitive if it is built to work across allies. AlliedTechLabs is designed to test allied technology on shared ground, and NestOS is built as an open, modular platform for exactly that. Through AlliedTechLabs, NestAI aims to strengthen the capabilities of allied forces across NATO’s Eastern Flank, connecting our R&D centre in Latvia to the forces it is built for,” Peter Sarlin, Founder & Executive Chairman of NestAI.
AlliedTechLabs will leverage Latvia’s operator-scale telecom infrastructure, 5G military testbed capabilities, urban test environments, and the scientific expertise of EDI. Additionally, the new centre will collaborate with Ukrainian partners to translate real-world combat and civil resilience experience into concrete testing standards and proposals for NATO and the EU.
“DiBaX has shown what Latvia can do: companies from across the Alliance working together for six months to turn promising products into demonstrated capabilities. AlliedTechLabs makes that permanent. LMT Group will contribute our network and engineering capacity so that innovators and Allied forces can validate next-generation solutions here in Latvia,” emphasizes Juris Binde, President of LMT Group.
