Bydgoszcz, Poland – The CWIX 2024 Final Coordination Conference concluded at Joint Force Training Centre where more than 900 experts from NATO and Partner Nations, as well as various Agencies, Commands, and industry partners, worked together to finalize interoperability testing programmes ahead of CWIX Execution this June. CWIX, short for Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination eXercise, is an annual NATO Military Committee approved event designed to bring about continuous improvement in interoperability.
CWIX24 is slated to be another record-breaking exercise with an anticipated 2,500 participants testing 505 capabilities. For three weeks in June, engineers, operators, and developers will interconnect and troubleshoot hundreds of NATO and national systems and conduct thousands of interoperability test cases, delivering a more ready, responsive, and resilient Alliance.
CWIX also exploits the human element of interoperability: building trust and confidence in people, processes, and technology, while fostering a focused, collaborative environment across Nations, branches, and domains.
CWIX Celebrates its 25th Anniversary this Year!
For 25 years, CWIX has continuously driven interoperability forward while adapting to meet the Alliance’s needs amidst shifts in the global security landscape and advancements in technology.
In 1999, the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration used a permanent infrastructure that became what is now called the Combined Federated Battle Laboratories Network, as established by the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Board. For the first time, the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration connected United States, Austria, Canada, France, New Zealand, Spain, Turkey, and Great Britain directly to SHAPE for testing. To this day, CWIX leverages the Combined Federated Battle Laboratories Network to provide nations a stable, multi-domain, secure testing environment.
As the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration evolved into a coalition programme, in 2004 it was renamed the Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration, which focused on technologies ready for operational use within one year. In 2009, it was again renamed to reflect its expanded scope as an exercise, to the Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination eXercise – CWIX. The 2010 execution convened 817 participants from 20 nations to test 96 command and control systems in Lillehammer, Norway.
In 2011 CWIX moved to Bydgoszcz, Poland, home to the Joint Force Training Centre which remains the CWIX venue today. The 2023 iteration of CWIX was the largest to date – 2,300 personnel representing 35 NATO and Partner nations conducted more than 23,000 interoperability tests of 406 capabilities.
More About CWIX
Allied Command Transformation provides direction and management to the CWIX testing programme, while NATO and Partner Nations sponsor interoperability capabilities with specific objectives defined by Allied Command Transformation and National Leads. CWIX focuses primarily on testing and improving the interoperability of NATO and National Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence systems, with particular emphasis on those that would be deployed within a NATO Response Force or Combined Joint Task Force. In addition to bilateral technical testing, CWIX provides a venue to conduct technical testing of fielded, developmental and experimental systems in the context of a coalition scenario. CWIX runs concurrently with several National venues, which share a common testing network.