Governments around the world are reassessing their strategic defense capabilities. Many of these countries, particularly in Europe, are playing catch-up after decades of underinvestment in defense and are focusing on strengthening their ability to meet immediate national security needs: closing capability gaps, rebuilding stockpiles, and fortifying existing systems against cyber threats.

Such efforts are essential but incomplete. New and emerging defense technologies—across AI, autonomous systems, space, biotechnology, quantum technologies, and more—are changing the very nature of conflict and altering the future definition of military advantage. It is crucial that policymakers consider these strategic interests in tandem.

Europe—specifically, the UK and all countries that are members of both NATO and the EU—faces unique challenges in navigating this new geostrategic terrain. The region is an established hub of world-class talent with strong research capacity. But our analysis of roughly 250 million research publications, 90 million patent family records, and multiple investment trends, shows that Europe struggles to convert its research potential into deployable defense products. The disconnect between potential and application is due in large part to the lack of consistent demand from domestic military end users.

Such demand, however, is poised to grow. Many European countries aim to more than double their defense spending to 5% of GDP annually by 2035 (with 3.5% taking the form of core defense spending). But what should that investment look like, now and in the years to come? To help answer that question, we have focused our study on the defense tech frontier—identifying the highest-impact new technologies on the basis of insights from a panel of more than 50 senior defense experts in Europe, the US, and other allied countries. We also assessed Europe’s relative position across these key technologies—to propose a path for national leaders and policymakers to follow in prioritizing investments.