Swedish military joins Telia, Ericsson to boost defense tech

By Supantha Mukherjee

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -The Swedish Armed Forces on Tuesday joined Telia and Ericsson's 5G innovation program to strengthen military communications, logistics, security and support interoperability within the NATO alliance.

Telecom operator Telia and mobile gear maker Ericsson partnered in 2023 to start the NorthStar 5G innovation program to experiment on the latest 5G technologies and had focused on industrial customers.

"We need to speed it up due to the geopolitical situation in the last six months," Brigadier-General Mattias Hanson, chief information officer at the Swedish Armed Forces, told Reuters.

"We have talked about it for years, but now we have to start it up," he said.

European countries have been scrambling to boost their defences against a potential Russian attack after the Trump administration made clear since it took office that the U.S. was no longer willing to be the main guarantor of Europe's security.

Sweden, NATO's newest member, currently spends around 2.7% of GDP on defence and said this year it would target 3.5% of defence spending in 2030.

The Swedish Armed Forces would work with new players and startups to build new capabilities and solve military problems.

One of the areas of cooperation will be communication for drones, Hanson said. "We will try to figure out how to be faster in innovation and how to solve a military problem with civilian technology."

The military has its own communication system, but plans to use a combination of different technologies such as radio, satellites, 5G and fiber optics.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm, editing by Terje Solsvik)