Partner Nations Hammer Out Foundation for Digital Transformation at Leadership Summit

The four-day Five Eyes Combined Digital Leadership Summit closed yesterday at the Pentagon with host Kirsten A. Davies, War Department chief information officer, acknowledging how impressed she is by partner nations working together to advance shared goals and build accountability.

The Five Eyes alliance is a global intelligence community formed Aug. 14, 1941, by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The leadership summit is a Five Eyes forum for synchronizing the organization's digital transformation efforts. It includes a defense chief information officer forum, a defense chief data officer forum, and a combined communications and electronics board.

"Seeing the digital leadership of all Five Eyes nations gathered in one room, united by a shared mission, has been more than just encouraging to me; it's been a powerful testament to the enduring strength of our alliance," Davies said. "What has made this week truly exceptional is the alignment and commitment to action that's emerged from all of these discussions."

At the top of the discussion during the summit, Davies said, was Five Eyes' Project Arcadia. It's something she said is of critical importance to the gathered nations and an area where remarkable progress was made.

"The strategic imperative that has galvanized our togetherness is Project Arcadia," she said. "Throughout this week, we've solidified our shared understanding that [this] is not merely another [information technology] project; it is the operational imperative of our time. It is the digital backbone of our coalition, the very ecosystem that will empower our warfighters with [the] data supremacy and decision dominance they need to win on the battlefields of today and of tomorrow."

According to Davies, this project will allow Five Eyes partners to take vast amounts of information from across the joint forces and create a common operating picture that previous systems were unable to accomplish.

"[Project] Arcadia is how we make that vision a reality," she said. "It is the foundation that will allow us to deliver overwhelming strength and decisive advantage from the core to the tactical edge, across all of our forces."

Building lethality for warfighters and strengthening relationships with partners, such as through Project Arcadia, have been top priorities for Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

The digital leadership summit occurs twice a year, with the next scheduled for Sydney in November.