The Finnish defence technology company NestAI is beginning to train its own AI models for the battlefield. The Finnish Defence Forces (Puolustusvoimat) and the Estonian Defence Forces will serve as pilot users of the first models, which are being developed for autonomy in unmanned systems and for command and control of forces.
"There is no general artificial intelligence that always works in all environments. There is also no single model that solves all problems. It requires continuous development," says Peter Sarlin, founder and chairman of NestAI, to the Finnish Defence Forces magazine Ruotuväki.
According to Ruotuväki, the goal is for the models to help the Finnish Defence Forces operate autonomously on the battlefield even if satellite navigation is disrupted, communications links are severed, or sensors provide incorrect information. Finland's Ministry of Defence and the Estonian Defence Forces signed a cooperation agreement with NestAI in late June on AI development, and the Finnish Defence Forces AI Centre, together with the Estonian Defence Forces, will be the first to test the models.
In a press release, NestAI states that the first models are being trained for two tasks: battlefield autonomy, which gives unmanned systems the capability to make independent decisions, and battlefield orchestration, which supports the command and coordination of forces. The models are trained on operational data from the company's command system NestOS, supplemented with synthetic data from a digital model of the terrain and conditions along Europe's eastern flank. There, according to the company, the models can be trained on scenarios that are too rare or too dangerous to practise in reality.
"The intelligence at the heart of Europe's defence should be Europe's own, built and improved on terms Europe sets. We are building AI that learns with every mission and adapts as the threat changes, and we are building it where it matters most, on Europe's eastern flank," says Peter Sarlin.
The training is carried out, according to the press release, in cooperation with partners including AMD, ELLIS Institute Finland, the Finnish Defence Forces, and the supercomputing initiative LUMI AI Factory. NestAI was founded in 2025 and has grown to 200 researchers and engineers.