Illustration: Lorenzo Rumori
Last week, we had the privilege of participating in the "Satellites for Peace: An Idea Whose Time Has Come" workshop at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Vatican City. The gathering brought together an extraordinary group of leaders from the United Nations, tech and satellites companies, governments, academia, and humanitarian organizations, to explore a deceptively simple question: How can space technologies be used more systematically to advance peace?
The timing could not have been more important.
Today, armed conflicts have reached levels not seen since the Second World War. At the same time, the capabilities of space technologies—including satellites, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, robotics, and geospatial intelligence—have expanded at an unprecedented pace.
High-resolution imagery, synthetic aperture radar, AI-powered analytics, increasingly frequent Earth observation and AI agents capable of autonomously processing vast volumes of satellite data, detecting anomalies, identifying emerging risks, generating actionable intelligence, and supporting real-time decision-making now make it possible to monitor ceasefires, assess infrastructure damage, detect forced displacement, protect cultural heritage, anticipate humanitarian crises, and document violations of international humanitarian law in near real time.
Yet despite these extraordinary advances, access to these capabilities remains fragmented, expensive, unevenly distributed, and often poorly analyzed. We are collecting unprecedented volumes of satellite and geospatial data, but data alone does not create impact. The real challenge is transforming that data into actionable intelligence and practical solutions including prediction tools that decision-makers can use to save lives and accelerate humanitarian response.
In other words, we are not suffering from a lack of data—we are suffering from a lack of access and actionable insight.
At the same time, breakthrough technologies—including AI agents and other deep technologies—are still being adopted far too slowly across the broader satellite data and peacebuilding ecosystem. Yet these technologies have the potential to fundamentally transform how we collect, analyze, and act on information—enabling faster decisions, better coordination, earlier warning, and more effective humanitarian and peacebuilding interventions.
Throughout the conference, speaker after speaker demonstrated that the technology itself is no longer the principal constraint. The real barriers are still institutional.
Organizations described three persistent challenges: gaining access to high-resolution imagery, obtaining the legal rights to re-use it, and having sufficient analytical capacity to translate raw imagery into actionable intelligence. Several humanitarian organizations explained how losing access to imagery can immediately reduce their ability to save lives, monitor conflicts, investigate human rights abuses, or support mediation efforts. Others emphasized that many forgotten crises simply never attract the commercial attention necessary to generate satellite tasking or analysis.
PeaceTech Is About More Than Technology
These discussions resonated strongly with work we have been advancing around PeaceTech.
Too often, PeaceTech is understood simply as the application of new technologies to conflict settings. But technology alone does not create peace. PeaceTech should instead be understood as the intentional use of technology and data to save lives, safeguard human dignity, prevent or recover from conflict, support accountability, and strengthen the conditions that enable people to live with dignity, agency, and security. As Artur Kluz emphasized during his presentation, PeaceTech is not a standalone defense technology under a different label. Rather, it represents an emerging field that harnesses the same next-generation technologies developed for commercial and defense applications for humanitarian purposes, guided by responsible governance.
Satellite technologies illustrate this perfectly.
The same satellite constellation can optimize precision agriculture, generate predictive investment analytics, support insurance and supply chain management, monitor energy and critical infrastructure, enable maritime and aviation navigation, track military movements, provide intelligence and battlefield awareness, enhance border security, support force protection, document attacks on civilians, assess earthquake and flood damage, coordinate humanitarian relief, monitor deforestation, or verify compliance with ceasefire agreements. The technology is inherently triple-use—simultaneously serving commercial markets, national security, and peacebuilding. The question, therefore, is not whether these technologies exist, but how we ensure they are governed and deployed responsibly in the public interest.
From Infrastructure to Institutions
One of the most encouraging aspects of the conference was its emphasis on building institutions rather than simply showcasing technologies.
Whether we are discussing satellite imagery, AI models, mobility data, robotics, or health data, these technologies are rapidly becoming triple-use—simultaneously serving commercial markets, national security, and humanitarian purposes. The future therefore depends on creating trusted institutions and intermediaries capable of balancing innovation with accountability.
The governance challenge is no longer simply one of privacy or security. It is about ensuring that critical digital infrastructures and frontier technologies serve the common good and become accessible public-interest resources.
A particularly inspiring example, also present at the Vatican is Common Space, the winner of the 2025 Kluz Prize for PeaceTech.
Common Space is pioneering what many at the conference argued is urgently needed: a dedicated, independent satellite capability designed specifically to serve humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding purposes. Rather than relying on ad hoc donations of imagery or competing for access with commercial and defense users, Common Space seeks to establish an Earth observation infrastructure whose primary mission is public interest. Its governance model is equally innovative, emphasizing independence, open access for humanitarian actors, and trusted stewardship through multi-stakeholder governance.
The initiative demonstrates an important shift within PeaceTech. The future is not simply about building better satellites; it is about building infrastructure and institutions that ensure those satellites serve humanity. Technologies only create public value when they are supported by governance frameworks, sustainable financing, trusted partnerships, and clear mechanisms that enable them to advance humanitarian objectives, protect national interests, and ensure equitable access.
In many ways, Common Space embodies the broader vision discussed throughout the Vatican conference. It demonstrates how PeaceTech can move beyond isolated pilot projects toward shared public infrastructure—bringing together satellite providers, tech entrepreneurs, engineers, programmers, researchers, humanitarian organizations, governments, and civil society around a common mission: ensuring that critical Earth observation capabilities are available not only for commercial applications and defence, but also for saving lives, preventing conflict, supporting humanitarian response, protecting the environment, and strengthening peace.
It is precisely this kind of institutional innovation that the Kluz Prize for PeaceTech seeks to identify and accelerate. By recognizing Common Space last year, the Prize highlighted not simply a technological breakthrough, but a new model for governing technology in the service of humanity.
Several conversations also highlighted issues that extend beyond technical interoperability: questions of trust, legitimacy, responsible AI, data verification, licensing, and digital sovereignty. These discussions closely align with ongoing work around social license for data reuse, data commons, and new governance approaches that place the common good, not simply technologies, at the center.
Launching the 5th Kluz Prize for PeaceTech
The Vatican gathering also provided a fitting platform to announce the launch of the 5th Annual Kluz Prize for PeaceTech.
Presented by Artur Kluz, the Prize seeks to support tech companies, peace and humanitarian organizations and initiatives, particularly those initiated by the younger generation and the tech community, including entrepreneurs, engineers, programmers, scientists, startups, accelerators, and venture capitalists. It recognizes their distinguished achievements in developing technologies that save lives, advance peace, prevent conflict, strengthen humanitarian action, and protect human dignity. As his presentation emphasized, PeaceTech remains dramatically undercapitalized despite the enormous social and economic costs of conflict. The Prize aims not only to celebrate innovation but also to help build a global ecosystem connecting entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, researchers, humanitarian organizations, and policymakers working at this intersection.
After reviewing more than 350 applications from 82 countries over previous editions, one thing has become increasingly clear: remarkable innovation is already happening around the world. What is often missing is visibility, investment, and the institutional support needed to move promising ideas into sustained impact. The Kluz Prize seeks to help close that gap.
Looking Forward
Leaving the Vatican, we were struck by one overarching insight. For decades, satellites have transformed how we observe our planet. The next challenge is ensuring they transform how we save lives, strengthen peace, and serve humanity.
Doing so will require more than just launching additional satellites or developing better AI. It will require building the governance frameworks, partnerships, financing mechanisms, and institutions (in addition to the launch systems, mobility platforms, data centers, communications networks, and Earth observation infrastructure) that allow these technologies to become trusted public infrastructure for humanity
If war has become increasingly digital, then peace must become digital as well—not by replacing diplomacy or human judgment, but by equipping them with better tools, stronger collaboration, and more responsible stewardship of the technologies that increasingly shape our world.
