NATO StratCom COE Opens an AI Lab in Riga to Harden Allies Against Disinformation

The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, based in Riga and operating since 2014, is launching a dedicated AI Lab tasked with improving election security and resilience against disinformation and adversarial manipulation, and with building predictive, decision-support tools for policymakers facing information threats.

The Lab is funded through reallocation of national Ministry of Defence budgets: funding rises by €1.08 million in 2026 to reach €5.54 million, and by a further €897,640 from 2027 onward, bringing the annual total to €5.66 million. The Centre began recruiting for multiple AI Lab roles as the programme stood up.

As an accredited NATO Centre of Excellence — not a NATO command — its findings and tools are designed to be shared across member states and partner countries. Because the Lab has only just been funded and staffed, there is not yet public evidence of its detection tools being independently evaluated or deployed operationally.

Read the full analysis: https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/ai-and-advanced-tech/nato-strategic-communications-centre-of-excellence-launches-new-ai-laboratory/