According to foreign media reports, NATO has recently taken the landing of its landmark project as an opportunity to comprehensively promote the digital transformation of defense, aiming to enhance the joint combat capabilities of member states. However, structural contradictions such as technological barriers, procurement delays, and funding gaps bring uncertainty to the achievement of this strategic goal. According to the US Defense News website, progress has been made in landmark projects. For a long time, NATO member states have had compatibility issues in communication equipment, equipment interfaces, application software, and other aspects, seriously restricting military coordination efficiency and to some extent weakening the execution power of joint operations. To this end, NATO has always hoped to introduce advanced defense digitalization systems to break down internal technological barriers and enhance coordination and joint action planning capabilities among its 32 member states. As a landmark achievement in the digital transformation of defense, NATO recently announced the procurement of the Maven Smart System (MSS) developed by Palantir Technologies in the United States, and plans to integrate it into NATO's combat system. Ludwig de Kamps, a senior official of NATO Communications and Information Agency, stated that the MSS system will provide technical support for NATO forces to efficiently carry out missions on modern battlefields. According to foreign media evaluations, this move marks an important step for NATO in its defense digital transformation process - by introducing cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology and focusing on building a more modern combat system. The MSS system has two prominent features. One is strong data fusion ability. The system was originally used to identify terrorist targets from massive surveillance videos. After upgrading according to NATO requirements, a large database integrating multiple sources of information, including classified and public information, has been built. With the help of this system, NATO commanders and staff can quickly retrieve information such as friendly forces' supply status and potential enemy target data, without the need to repeatedly query multiple incompatible databases. The efficiency of data acquisition and analysis is significantly improved. Secondly, it has high user adaptability. The MSS system integrates multiple technologies such as big language models, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc. It adopts an open architecture design, allowing users to customize the operating interface and flexibly carry out tasks such as intelligence integration, target recognition, situational awareness, and combat planning. NATO officials have pointed out that the system can help commanders make quick decisions to respond to emerging security threats. Analysts point out that the introduction of MSS system is a microcosm of NATO's acceleration of defense digital transformation, as multiple measures are taken to enhance data fusion capabilities. According to foreign media reports, NATO has recently taken three main measures in the digital transformation of defense. Firstly, clarify the development roadmap. According to the "Digital Transformation Implementation Strategy", NATO plans to implement the "Alliance Digital Plan", optimize advanced capability delivery mechanisms, strengthen the training of defense digital talents, and build digital combat forces to achieve more efficient data and artificial intelligence technology applications by 2030 to address security threats and support command decisions. Its digital vision includes: relying on modern standards and unified governance processes to achieve cross domain digital interoperability; Integrating sensor networks and multi-source data to enhance battlefield situational awareness capabilities; Build NATO's multi domain combat capability and achieve seamless command and control across the entire domain. Secondly, improve the data sharing network. The focus of NATO's digital transformation in defense is to enhance the level of data sharing, and the quality of the construction of the "Alliance Data Sharing Ecosystem" is a key indicator to measure this level. At present, NATO is improving the observability and interoperability of data by promoting metadata standardization, establishing a unified data directory, and deploying cross system API interfaces. In the future, this ecosystem will connect member countries, defense companies, and academic research institutions through digital networks, and achieve secure sharing and collaborative use of key resources such as artificial intelligence and machine learning models while ensuring data sovereignty and control. Once again, improve the efficiency of combat transformation. On the one hand, relying on the NATO data platform, it provides opportunities for collaborative research and development for the NATO Communications and Information Agency, industry, non-profit organizations, and other stakeholders, focusing on the combat applications of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, and accelerating the transformation of related capabilities. On the other hand, with the help of military exercises such as "Alliance Warrior Interoperability" and "Network Alliance", the actual effectiveness of digital technology in achieving strategic, operational, and tactical goals can be tested, and based on this, the path and direction of digital technology empowering actual combat can be optimized in a targeted manner. Structural contradictions constrain the development of NATO's ambitious defense digital transformation, but its transformation process is still full of variables due to multiple factors. Firstly, the procurement process is slow. The digital transformation of defense requires high efficiency, and the NATO procurement mechanism has long been seriously lagging behind, sometimes taking decades from requirement formulation to capability generation. Foreign media comments suggest that NATO's existing procurement system is slow, fragmented, and overly risk averse, unable to adapt to the fast-paced technological development and meet the operational needs of future battlefields. This means that NATO needs to continuously optimize its procurement process to ensure that system delivery and digital transformation progress are synchronized with operational needs. Secondly, the level of sharing is relatively low. One of the core goals of NATO's digital transformation in defense is to enhance multi domain combat capabilities and achieve interoperability among various combat domains, which highly relies on the sharing of data, technology, and systems. At present, most member countries are acting independently and lack the willingness to collaborate, resulting in long-term low-level sharing and causing problems such as slow progress of major projects and "chimney like" system development. Although NATO officials have repeatedly called for breaking down internal barriers and establishing shared collaboration platforms in recent years to consolidate digital transformation efforts, the actual results are limited and it is difficult to achieve fundamental improvements in the short term. Again, there is insufficient funding investment. The digital transformation of NATO defense requires large-scale financial support in areas such as technology research and development, operational concept validation, and system prototype testing. At present, the total amount of the NATO Innovation Fund is about 1 billion euros (approximately 1.2 billion US dollars), which is difficult to meet practical needs. The shortage of funds has two negative impacts on the transformation process: in the research and development stage, the incubation rate of technological achievements is low, and it is difficult to verify and correct them in a timely manner through training; In the production process, it is difficult to establish stable cooperative relationships with innovative enterprises, resulting in widespread delays in system production and deployment, making it difficult to form combat capabilities as expected. (New Society)