Hefring Marine selected for NATO DIANA Mission Track to accelerate deployment of maritime AI across NATO

Icelandic tech company Hefring Marine has been selected as one of just 15 companies to advance to Mission Track of NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), from a 2026 cohort of 150 innovators selected from more than 3,600 proposals across the Alliance.

The Reykjavík-based company is the only Icelandic company ever to reach this stage of the DIANA programme, marking a significant step towards the operational adoption of its maritime intelligence technology across NATO and Allied forces.

Mission Track is the follow-on element of the DIANA programme, supporting technologies that have demonstrated strong defence interest and alignment with Allied operational needs. Selected companies receive up to €300,000 in non-dilutive funding, continued access to NATO test centres and tailored support to help transition their technologies towards operational deployment.

Hefring entered the DIANA programme with ODIN (Observation and Domain Awareness Network), a maritime intelligence system designed to connect data from navigation and object-detection systems across existing vessels. By combining this information across multiple platforms, ODIN is designed to provide a persistent, networked view of activity at sea and support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. The technology builds on Hefring’s Marine Decision Intelligence platform, IMAS, which uses edge AI to provide real-time decision support aboard crewed and uncrewed vessels.

“Mission Track is important because with ODIN validated in real-time operations and exercises, the focus now moves decisively towards adoption,” said Karl Birgir Björnsson, CEO and co-founder of Hefring Marine. “Our priority now is to get these capabilities into the hands of operators, validate them in demanding environments and work through the practical steps needed to deploy them across existing Allied fleets. For a company that started in Reykjavík solving very practical problems aboard small vessels, the opportunity to contribute to maritime security at Alliance level is a significant milestone.” 

The Mission Track selection follows a period of growing engagement between Hefring and Allied defence organisations. In August, Hefring welcomed NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alexus G. Grynkewich, U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker and U.S. Ambassador to Iceland Billy Long to its Reykjavík headquarters. The delegation was shown demonstrations of IMAS and ODIN and discussed how maritime decision intelligence could support Allied operations and help move emerging technology into real-world capability.

Hefring also recently welcomed Clara Ganslandt, Ambassador of the European Union to Iceland, and representatives of the EU Delegation to Iceland to discuss the role European maritime technology can play in strengthening safety, security and situational awareness at sea. 

The announcement also comes as members of the Hefring team participate in REPMUS 2026 in Portugal, a major operational experimentation exercise for maritime robotics and uncrewed systems. Bringing together NATO organisations, Allied navies, industry and academia, the exercise provides Hefring with an opportunity to test and demonstrate its technology in realistic maritime environments alongside potential end users.

“There is a clear thread running through all of this,” Karl Björnsson added. “From the conversations taking place in Reykjavík to the experimentation happening at REPMUS, the question is increasingly not whether technologies like these have potential, but how quickly we can validate, integrate and operationalise them.”