Oslo’s Spektrum was the chosen venue for UDT 2025 and with good reason. While Norway’s credentials as a leading hub of maritime innovation are well documented, the region has fallen foul to a series of recent unplanned disruptions to critical underwater infrastructure (CUI) in the Baltic Sea, dating back to 2022 and the rupture of two Nordstream gas pipelines.
CUI PROTECTION IN FOCUS
The severance of yet another seabed power cable running between Estonia and Finland on December 25, 2024, was seen as a final trigger for Baltic Sentry, an allied effort to enhance NATO’s naval defense presence in the Baltic Sea. CUI protection, by way of comprehensive subsea domain awareness to inform appropriate deterrence operations, has been made a top priority.
“Naval warfare is about to change,” asserted Rear Admiral Oliver Berdal, Chief of the Norwegian Royal Navy, in his opening key- note address. Berdal was equivocal: having the largest fleet—a distinction that the US Navy has conceded to China’s rapid naval buildup in recent years—was no longer a sure path to naval dominance. Ruling the waves, and so the world, to paraphrase Alfred Thayer Mahan’s fabled quote, must account for front- line experience and technological innovation.
Berdal stressed the growing need for nations to work together to realize that “the future is increasingly going to be unmanned; it is going to be autonomous, and for all the different technologies that industry will be developed in years to come, whether it is on the surface, beneath the waves, or on the seabed, it is going to be lethal.”
The following round table—which welcomed Per Lundby, Secretary of the Danish Cable Protection Committee, and Ander Tysdal, CTO at Tampnet, to the stage—raised the question: who is responsible for CUI protection? After all, it is not a purely military problem, and so there is no pure military solution. The globalized world relies entirely on a growing network of underwater cables, pipelines, and powerlines. Scalable, tangible, and borderless proposals are needed.
UNMANNED & AUTONOMOUS
Three days of discussions, technical papers, and use case presentations ensued, demonstrating how industry leadership, academia, and government entities from around the world are actioning real-world solutions, many of which are contingent on the incorporation of AI on a quantum computing level. We are talking about a rate of unprecedented data processing, far beyond reasonable human capacity, while also attempting to remove fighters from the battlespace. In short, autonomous and unmanned systems.
This was a sentiment echoed by Commander Justin Quinn, Director NATO Maritime Unmanned Systems Innovation Coordination Cell, NATO Joint Capability Group for Maritime Unmanned Systems (JCGMUS), in day 2’s keynote session. Quinn dug into some of the details surrounding NATO’s new TASK FORCE X, a multinational effort for allied forces to showcase emerging technologies and prioritize interoperability and scalability, allowing nations to pool individual capabilities within a NATO framework.
Task Force X works alongside NATO’s Digital Ocean initiative, which seeks to align partners to enhance NATO’s maritime situational awareness from seabed to space. Quinn outlined how smaller, less established companies could participate, urging interested parties to explore NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), which is made up of 20 accelerator sites and 180 test centers. Autonomy is a key focus for DIANA.
OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
UDT has managed to achieve a unique positioning in the international defense conference roster while being primarily technical. The agenda unapologetically poses present-day challenges—subjects designed to provoke reflection and response—and by congregating thought leaders from complementary professional disciplines, the event creates fertile ground for interaction across government, SMEs, primes, and forces.
This was further evidenced in the exhibition hall, which is always impressive but selective. While modest by comparison to some of the other premier defense industry floors, due to the rotation of venues (every other year being London’s ExCeL), delegates traveling to UDT are usually multi-day visitors. This tends to prosper more meaningful access to a supply chain capable of multigenerational commitments to delivering world-leading platforms and programs, such as the AUKUS Trilateral agreement.
From AUVs to torpedoes and from submarines to tactical USVs—there is something for everyone. With domineering booths presented by the likes of Saab, Helsing, BAE Systems, Babcock et al., one exhibit that demanded attention was that of a GREY- SHARK multi-mission, high-endurance AUV, the result of a partnership between EURO- ATLAS and EvoLogics. The AUV’s specifications are impressive—speeds of 10 knots for a range of 1,100 nm (8,000 nm at 4 knots), stealth capabilities in swarm formation, and real-time AI-led adaptive navigation.
REPURPOSING PROVEN TECH
The DualTech Challenge, created in collaboration with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), gave audiences a chance to see how businesses and individuals are proposing novel applications of existing subsea technologies for defense purposes. The three finalists were Emilie Asberg, CEO of Havguard (cross-domain communication between underwater and aerial drones), Alan Anderson, Program Manager for Freedom
AUV at Oceaneering (use of adaptive AUV autonomy), and eventual winner Thor Storm Husoy, Principal Engineer at Kongsberg Discovery for the use of field-proven USBL systems, AUVs, and resident monitoring systems to create rapid, ad-hoc underwater surveillance networks.
Finally, a quick nod to the organizing committee and Clarion Events for their accommodation of media partners. Each year, UDT creates a dedicated space for delegates to not only pick up partner publications but also unplug, sit, and read. It is something of a “media zone” and a model that we encourage and applaud.
This spotlight appeared in ON&T Magazine’s 2025 May Edition, Oceanography & Remote Monitoring, to read more access the magazine here.
