In an exclusive interview, UK Royal Air Force, Air Vice Marshal (Retired) Gary Waterfall spoke to Army Technology about what to expect from the upcoming International Training Technology Exhibition and Conference (IT²EC) in Oslo, Norway between the 25 and 27 March 2025.
As the senior military adviser for the event, Waterfall dug into the predominant themes guiding the gathering. The foremost principle, he envisaged, will be ‘accelerating the technology of tomorrow into today’s training’.
Likewise, critical enablers of future military training will also be considered – such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) – all of which will drive capabilities, and therefore discussions at IT²EC 2025.
John Hill (JH): Is there a particular theme that will guide IT²EC this year?
Gary Waterfall (GW): After Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians have been bravely fighting for control of their own country for the past three years, and they’ve surprised almost everybody with their speed of innovation and through their application of technology in areas that maybe they hadn’t really thought of before, and that all speaks volumes to where we sit in the world in terms of a technological revolution.
So, turning to IT²EC we sat down and thought about: how do we best encapsulate that? We came up with a theme – ‘accelerating the technology of tomorrow into today’s training.’
JH: IT²EC is being held in Oslo, Norway, this time. Is there a particular reason for that?
GW: We always move the conference and the exhibition from London out into a European venue each year. The selection of Norway, both for IT²EC and its sister show, UDT [Undersea Defence Technology], which is taking place at the same time at the same venue, is really apt and timely.
Norway have a defence budget of over £10bn (Nkr142bn). They’re prioritising advanced training for both naval acquisitions and also Nato operations in the Arctic and cold weather conditions. This really speaks volumes to where we sit with a resurgent Russia. And the fact that now Sweden and Finland are both strong Nato allies.
Norway is looking at bolstering its defensive stance, protecting against their regional threats. There is no better place for us to hold IT²EC.
JH: How will IT²EC balance the global and Eurocentric outlooks?
GW: In terms of visitors, we’re going to have over 60 countries along, and some of the exhibitors that we’re going to have will be far flung: Australia, Canada, America, Germany, Sweden, in addition to Norway, and, of course, the UK.
Some notable exhibitors such as Babcock, Bohemia Interactive Simulation & Kongsberg; and Saab will all be at the show.
We all see the world slightly differently from where we sit, be that in the UK, be that up in the Nordics, or be that in Eastern Europe. It’s really important for us to understand the collective concerns of allied nations and that is why we devised the IT²EC conference themes that will resonate.
JH: So AI, AR, and VR are the three sub themes that are really going to be driving the conference. How should we be viewing them?
GW: Many companies will talk about AI – but, what do you mean by AI? AI rolls into machine learning (ML). I think when you’re outside of defence and you think of AI, you think of autonomous drones marauding.
However, through the intellectual use of AI and ML we can accelerate decisions that a war fighter can make. It is worth keeping in mind that, at the end of the day, any form of warfare is is definitely a human endeavour. So whilst we can harness much AI as we can, the responsibility always rests with the human.
An advantage of virtual reality – be it for a soldier, sailor or an airman – is that you can get down, from combat, from tactical manoeuvres, and all sorts of intra and inter formation work, in a safe and controlled setting. So you don’t need to have red forces opposing you, and you can do it synthetically.
Augmented reality has got as much application, in the training world as it has in the real world, because you can start to optimise how you train in that live environment by using AR.
As opposed to the old analogue world, where we just rely on experience [and think]: ‘they’ve been there for a couple of years, they must be experienced’ – no. Now, through the use of augmented reality, we can hone this training to get personnel trained far faster, which means they can contribute ever quicker than they did before.
JH: Data is a vital asset for simulation training because of the analytics which can be used to inform how you shape training. How will IT²EC orient the discussion around the use of data?
GW: Every single discussion that we have at IT²EC will centre around data; the storage, the use, its manipulation.
As you harness it, and you realise how you’re going to manipulate it, and if you manipulate it wisely, you can then come up with some really good predictions about what you may or may not want to do in the future.
All of that is based upon previous use cases, but you can start to temper that going forward. It might be different operating windows, it might be day or night, but you can predict that, and therefore being able to conduct true predictive analysis will help you with procuring the number of support equipment you need, procuring the right clothing, etc.
IT²EC is Europe’s largest show dedicated to defence training and simulation. For more, visit the show website here.
