Third edition of Operation CIEDS at École Polytechnique

Operation CIEDS confirmed its success in 2025 for its third edition organized at École Polytechnique by the Interdisciplinary Center for Defense and Security Studies (CIEDS).

This one day event around meetings and discussions dedicated to research and innovation for defense and security brings together manufacturers, start-ups, researchers, and defense operators around a common goal: the major strategic challenges facing the defense sector. It is supported by the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Defense Innovation Agency (AID).

“Every year, this event raises the bar in terms of participation and programming,” said Laura Chaubard, President and CEO of École Polytechnique, in her opening remarks.

The 2025 edition of the exchange forum brought together more than twenty start-ups from X-UP, the incubator of the École Polytechnique, or incubators from other member schools of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, which have developed a product or service for a civil sector use case and wish to test the interest of their solution on a defense use case in front of personnel from the Ministry of the Armed Forces and industry representatives from the sector. CIEDS' industrial partners came to present their R&D programs and achievements in order to share their technological challenges.

The day was organized around two main speeches: Nathanaël Gilbert, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation Space at Safran Electronics & Defense, discussed the opportunities and risks of Newspace for defense, while Michael Krajecki, Director of Research at the Ministerial Agency for Artificial Intelligence in Defense (AMIAD), located on the École Polytechnique campus, detailed the challenges of artificial intelligence for defense.

A round table discussion on the second quantum revolution and its implications for defense, moderated by Kees van Der Beek, Director of Research at École Polytechnique, brought together Romain Alléaume (Laboratory for Information Processing and Communication, LTCI), Frédéric Barbaresco (THALES Land & Air Systems), Landry Bretheau (Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics, PMC), Amélie Kies (Laboratory of Applied Optics, LOA), Sylvie Paolacci-Riera (Defense Innovation Agency), and Andrea Simonetto (Applied Mathematics Unit, UMA).

Four thematic seminars were devoted respectively to major maritime challenges, links between space and defense, defense systems of systems, and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear) weapons.

“This day reflects a deeper collective dynamic, which CIEDS has strongly embodied since its creation four years ago,” Laura Chaubard recalled in her opening speech. 

" Together with the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, the AID, the AMIAD, the CIEDS and its 140 researchers and teacher-researchers, and our public and private partners, we have built a working community that will enable us to be decisive in future competition and shorten the path between fundamental research, weaponization, and operational use," she emphasized. 

“In the coming years, the creation of a Defense Institute on our campus will further amplify this momentum,” said the president and CEO of École Polytechnique.