1. Vigilance required to tackle rising AI-generated threats
Nick Sinnott, Head of AI Centre of Domain Expertise
In 2024, AI became even more embedded in society, having a significant impact on everyday life and on private and public sectors alike. As the technology evolves rapidly, we can only expect this trend to continue in 2025. The same is true for conversations surrounding it, particularly around the responsible use of AI.
The benefits of AI are manifold. It can enhance human decision making, improve efficiency, enable us to solve problems quicker and the list goes on. At the same time, it is being weaponised by hostile actors. Most notably, we are already seeing criminal applications of generative AI. Deep fake technology, for example, is creating credible videos, pictures, audio and text of events which never occurred. This poses a threat to all facets of society, from individuals to organisations and national security.
There has been a lot of emphasis on ‘responsible AI’, with several frameworks proposed that have a lot of commonality between them. While this work is vital, those using AI maliciously are unlikely to give any thought to responsibility. We can therefore expect to see considerable developments in technology used to combat AI-generated threats such as deep fakes. This will likely involve applying AI-enabled tools to automate the detection process – essentially fighting AI with AI. Advancements in authentication will also be critical to establish a sense of trust in what we’re seeing, watching, hearing and reading is what we think it is.
Protecting against constantly evolving AI-generated threats will require vigilance. Both sides are innovating rapidly – and we must ensure we always remain one step ahead.
2. Neuromorphic and quantum tech to bring real-world benefits
Rob Wythe, Chief Technologist
Neuromorphic vs. quantum computing
When it’s mature enough to be applied to real-world problems, quantum computing will be a game changer. But this reality is years away. In the shorter term, there is another form of high-performance computing we should be looking at: neuromorphic computing.
This is an alternative approach to computer architectures that tries to mimic how the brain works and is currently closer to practical application than quantum computing. One key application of this is for Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs), which are different from the neural networks we use today in most AI. Instead of processing information in a steady flow, like current AI models, SNNs send information in short bursts, or “spikes,” similar to how neurons in the brain communicate. This method is more energy efficient as it only works when there’s something to process. It’s also more powerful because it can handle the timing of signals, in terms of when they arrive and how that varies, making them closer to how real brains work. This leads to new abilities, like organising themselves into patterns that make their decisions easier to understand—a big improvement over current AI, which can be a “black box” and hard to explain.
Neuromorphic computing will become increasingly important in 2025 and beyond, particularly as AI demands more from computing than ever before. An area in which neuromorphic technology will play a key role is the ability to use AI at the edge – environments which don’t have supercomputers to run large language models. Neuromorphic chips can provide an answer here, by delivering a low power and highly constrained weight, size, power and cost environment.
Quantum and neuromorphic computer architectures have different strengths that make them more or less suitable for certain applications. Ultimately a hybrid architecture, just like conventional computers which use dedicated graphics processors, is likely to provide the best long term solution.
Quantum sensing
While quantum computing is a way off from practical implementation, the testing and development of quantum sensing is racing ahead. In 2025, this technology will become increasingly mature, especially in its ability to enhance Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT).
GPS jamming and spoofing presents a real-world threat, meaning the need to futureproof and enhance the resilience of PNT systems is vital. Quantum sensors have the potential to overcome recognised weaknesses in these systems by enabling us to calculate the position of aircraft without fully depending on satellite signals. For defence operations, this is important for a number of reasons. It ensures accurate navigation even in GPS-denied environments, significantly reduces risk to personnel and enhances mission readiness.
With the UK Government announcing its first test flight of quantum-based navigation systems, supported by BAE Systems, this technology is far from just a concept. As threats to society advance and become more complex on all fronts, quantum sensing can help keep vital infrastructure running, national security protected, and armed forces prepared.
3. Advanced situational awareness to drive unified multi-domain and cross-domain integration
Henry Tse, Head of Products and Services
As the trend towards multi-domain and cross-domain operations grows, connecting data from different domains – from subsea through to space – will be crucial for equipping those in critical sectors, including defence, security and law enforcement, with the 360° vision and situational awareness needed to make informed and rapid decisions.
To make this more of a reality, the need for greater collaboration between multiple stakeholders across allied forces, organisations, national security, governments and nations will come into sharp focus. Efforts to link domains will encompass everything from looking at networks, systems and ways of working to break down silos and address key challenges.
The demand for integrated tools will continue to increase, posing issues for the information architecture platforms underpinning them. For example, extensive data models are currently constrained by highly complex security architectures. While necessary for enabling safe collaboration between nations and coalitions, these architectures create problems for the mechanisms required to share or protect that data.
From a defence standpoint, another hurdle will arise around network bandwidth. While this is not a constraint for land-based IT solutions supporting Strategic Command and Control systems, deployed platforms are more challenged in highly mobile, communication-denied environments. We’ve overcome many technical challenges when it comes to connecting the underwater battlespace and the 'air/water' boundary, but we still have some way to go. Autonomous systems that do not require constant connection to wider systems will continue to be important and will benefit from the ongoing development of AI.
As systems evolve, they will increasingly need to become more plug and play, capable of utilising information across various domains and systems. This will be crucial not only for military operations but also for co-ordinating and syncing activities across different environments. Taking this approach will help to establish a more efficient digital backbone, supporting informed decision-making and enabling greater agility across defence, security, law enforcement and beyond.
4. The race for electromagnetic spectrum dominance across the software-defined battlespace
Hannah Green, Head of Product Delivery, Defence
To ensure the speed and agility needed in this constant race for dominance and mission-readiness, battlespace technology will become increasingly software-defined, covering the full electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) in 2025. As a result, military organisations will be increasingly focused on how to leverage the full range of cyber and electromagnetic activities (CEMA).
The electromagnetic activities under CEMA covers a diverse range of operations involving radios e.g. receiving and demodulating signals and data, generating and transmitting new signals, or processing off-air signals to determine timing, location or other operational information.
Military leaders will be required to understand, deny, deceive, manipulate and exploit the EMS more than ever before to make sense of an environment that is growing in complexity, with multiple distributed sensors, multiple platforms and multiple threats. Seeing clearly through detection and data collection in order to decide and act, as well as continuously adapting and improving, will be important. The key to successful CEMA will lie in the ability to do these things in a flexible, timely way that can be integrated with other operations and intelligence to give the overall CEMA capability.
In turn, flexibility will be enabled through the use of Software Defined Radios (SDRs) - radio devices whose operation is defined and controlled via software rather than being ‘hard-wired’. An example would be a radio that acts as a Wi-Fi device, a mobile phone or a DAB radio by running different software ‘applications’. This ability for dynamic re-programming to undertake different roles and tasks is critical to achieving CEMA superiority, for example enabling communications, electronic surveillance (ES / SIGINT) and Electronic Warfare (EW). This will enable militaries to update and upgrade their capabilities in response to threats at a pace that hasn’t been possible before.
5. Space-derived intelligence becomes core to most sectors
Jessica Regan, Space Account Manager
Providing a unique perspective for Earth Observation, intelligence from space enables us to better understand and respond to changes across multiple domains. While space-derived data is by no means new, it is becoming even more crucial to defence, civil and commercial sectors for gaining a competitive advantage.
This is largely due to advances in space technology, combined with the fact that satellites are becoming increasingly more cost effective to launch into low Earth orbit. Sensors on board spacecraft are now able to collect a range of Earth Observation data sources – from radio frequency (RF) signals to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to optical information – providing enhanced visibility of situations on Earth over wide distances. The way this data is analysed and turned it into intelligence is evolving too. Technologies such as advanced software defined radios are now capable of analysing this information on board satellites and delivering the resulting intelligence back to decision makers on Earth across multiple domains.
Against this backdrop, in 2025 we’ll see the space sector make use of a data-as-a-service model. It will become more common practice for organisations across defence, national security and environmental sectors to drive actionable outcomes without having to individually invest in satellites or ground station capabilities. We anticipate this data-as-a-service model will mean more organisations can benefit from space-derived data by making it more accessible. It will exist alongside asset ownership business models, which will remain critical for organisations operating in high trust environments where factors such as security and priority are fundamental.
While security will need to remain front and centre across the board, as more organisations benefit from a deeper understanding of Earth, we’ll be able to better respond to climate change, protect citizens and keep our armed forces mission ready.
These forecasts are those of the authors personally, and do not necessarily represent the views of BAE Systems.
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