Access to the cloud from the battle space will be essential in the future , because the Army will be using the same tools and the same technologies in the battle space that are in the business space – particularly AI .
Critical enablers of digital transformation – the future When Crossfield started imagining the Army ’ s fully-digitalised future , he noted that there were five to seven critical enablers of a digital transformation for the British Army – including wiring up all estates , statewide internet access for the Army , skills ’ training , and a joint server farm – all of which have since been identified and now need to be delivered .
“ We ' ve done a bit of the estate , so we ' re now going after the really big bit : the army hosting environment . We ' re writing the plan for that as I speak , with the aim of starting to deliver that transition , the adoption of cloud , in that space at the backend of 2022 ,” he establishes
“ Data ' s the critical enabler for all of the technologies we want to use . I mean , the best example I can give you is collecting data on our platforms so that we can make really good decisions about predictive maintenance . At the moment , that is done with a memory key and is very unreliable as a result , as you can imagine .”
So what next for the British Army ’ s digitalisation programme , Project THEIA ?
Crossfield concludes : “ Project THEIA ' s come a long way . It ' s done exactly what we wanted to do in the first phase : it ' s delivered on intent . We understand where we ' re going ; we ' ve very clearly defined the end state . We ' re now shifting to delivery , pivoting into working more in the battle space , and supporting our ambitions in terms of NATO .
“ We ' re trying to level the playing field and get the backs all lined up so there ' s no gaps when all advancing as one .”
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