Canada DND/CAF Artificial Intelligence Strategy

Canada’s live title is The Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Artificial Intelligence Strategy. Official pages still say Artificial Intelligence and AI. This article uses those names. Super Intelligence (SI) is this site’s own-voice term for current U.S. executive-branch policy; it does not rewrite a Canadian instrument. The Allied baseline this strategy later names is NATO’s Principles of Responsible Use.

What was published, and under which catalogue number

The Canada.ca landing lists the HTML sections and the PDF. The PDF’s title page is The Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Artificial Intelligence Strategy, catalogue D2-633/2024E-PDF, ISBN 978-0-660-45122-0. Government of Canada Publications records it as issued by National Defence, 2024.

The Deputy Minister / Chief of the Defence Staff message of 7 March 2024 calls it the first-ever DND/CAF Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy.

2030 vision and five lines of effort

The PDF’s vision is: By 2030, DND/CAF will be an AI-enabled organization, with ethical, inclusive, and trusted AI for interoperability and advantage in the battle space and improved stewardship in the corporate space, through a culture of innovation, a diverse AI-ready workforce, and secure partnerships. The DM/CDS message says the strategy outlines how Defence will leverage AI technologies to deliver on its priorities, including CAF reconstitution, the development of new operational and corporate capabilities, and maintaining interoperability with our allies.

The same message lists five lines of effort. The PDF titles them:

1. Fielding and Employing AI Capabilities
2. Change Management
3. Ethics, Safety, and Trust
4. Talent and Training
5. Partnerships

The strategy is to be read and implemented in conjunction with the Data Strategy and the Data Strategy Implementation Plan (DSIP). It aligns with applicable Canadian and international law, and with Government of Canada policies and guidelines for the use of digital and AI. Near-term activities include the creation of a DND/CAF AI Centre (DCAIC) as a centre of excellence. The PDF says the strategy will be followed by an implementation directive laying out responsibilities and timelines. We found no later Canada.ca page on this source list that publishes that directive as a finished public document, so we do not treat it as issued.

Guiding principles that name procurement and lethal force

Among the guiding principles, DND/CAF must deploy AI to augment, not replace, human action and decision making. Applications involving lethal force must always retain the human in the loop. Separately: DND/CAF must evolve our systems and processes to enable us to procure, develop, test, and field AI safely, securely and at the speed of relevance, including recognize software as a military capability as much as hardware.

Line of Effort 1 says DND/CAF will identify or develop tools to support the rapid and safe design, procurement, integration, and scaling of AI, including guidelines to assist project teams and support staff in procuring them. Line of Effort 3 says DND/CAF will encourage adoption and operationalization of AI principles in third party vendors and collaborate with key allies and partners to continue to develop and integrate national and international standards for data and AI ethics, such as the NATO Principles of Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Defence. That is the live Canadian name for the NATO baseline. See the NATO revised AI Strategy article.

Line of Effort 5 includes contribute to improving the procurement process to support development and acquisition of AI that balances security, safety, and ethics with the imperative to maintain flexibility and agility, working with Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC).

What the strategy is not

It is a DND/CAF strategy, not a CMMC Program analogue and not UK MOD JSP 936. Completing the US AIA Toolkit does not, on any page we cite, satisfy this document. The PDF itself says that without a cohered approach DND/CAF risks missing many appropriate opportunities to responsibly employ AI; that is a Canadian self-assessment, not a contractor clause.

Questions

Does DND/CAF require NATO PRUAI as a contract mark?

The sourced sentence is that DND/CAF will collaborate with key allies and partners to integrate standards such as the NATO Principles of Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Defence. NATO itself says those principles do not supersede national obligations.

Is the 2030 “AI-enabled organization” a certification?

No source we cite treats it as a product or supplier certificate. It is the strategy’s vision for DND/CAF as an organization.