Calibre interview: Stephen Porton, UK CTO for defence at IBM Technology

Stephen Porton, UK Chief Technology Officer for defence at IBM Technology, is uniquely placed to discuss the intersection of cutting-edge innovation and national security. While the name IBM may not be top of mind for the everyday consumer— Stephen is quick to point out that the company’s impact on modern life is both deep and often unseen.

“It’s not as much in the consciousness in the mind of the everyday consumer,” he noted, as we toured the company’s sleek office near Waterloo. Yet, many of the building blocks of modern digital commerce and communication owe their existence to IBM research. “They built the barcode, the stripe in ATM cards, and the modern ATMs themselves,” he explained, showing me a timeline of IBM’s successes on the wall of the office. This history is a key part of how IBM approaches the defence sector. Its relationship with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is about bringing the vast breadth of what IBM does—across thousands of industries and decades of development—to solve complex, unique problems.

The legacy of invention and the quantum threat

Porton explains that a significant part of IBM’s value comes from its foresight: the company is often working on solutions long before a challenge becomes a widespread, critical issue. This proactive stance is perfectly illustrated in the field of cryptography.

“IBM actually developed one of the first standards of encryption, DES [Data Encryption Standard],” Stephen explained. This historical expertise is now being deployed to mitigate what is arguably the most significant future threat to information security: the rise of the quantum computer. Current cryptography, which keeps much of the world’s secrets safe, relies on algorithms that are nearly impossible for current supercomputers to crack. However, these methods—specifically the asymmetric keys used today—will be vulnerable to a sufficiently powerful quantum computer.

The risk, as Porton explains, is not just in the future. “Adversaries can harvest encrypted data now, and decrypt it in five or ten years’ time,” making the move to quantum-safe encryption an immediate imperative. IBM has positioned itself at the forefront of this shift. Porton highlights a significant achievement in this area: of the four quantum-safe algorithms selected by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), three were developed by IBM.

The task ahead for the MoD, however, is immense. “The breadth of the problem is not well understood,” Porton says. With guidance that all departments must be using quantum-safe encryption by the mid-2030s, the work needs to start now. A single online transaction can involve around 15 encryption algorithms. The “big job” from IBM’s perspective, is to understand where encryption is used across the defence estate and ensure its security.

Open source for the greater good

Beyond cryptography, IBM’s ethos includes developing technologies for the “betterment of everyone.” Porton points to MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport), a communication protocol widely used by the Internet of Things (IoT) and other connected devices. “MQTT is a protocol that the IoT and devices use; it was invented by researchers from IBM in the UK, and then open-sourced,” he explains. By creating a ‘message bus’ that allows completely separate systems to talk to each other, IBM has enabled efficient, reliable data transfer across countless applications—a capability that is increasingly vital for modern, interconnected defence environments.

For large, complex organisations like the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the proliferation of data and the existence of deep data silos remain perennial challenges. For Porton and his team at IBM, tackling these issues is foundational to their work.

“Data is always a problem for big organisations, proliferation and data silos mean that there are lots of challenges,” Porton admits. “A key IBM application would be around bringing disparate sources of data together and extracting the value from it,” he says, noting that this quickly results in an increased speed of decision-making.

The complexity extends beyond technology, however, into the crucial relationship dynamic. Porton stresses that effective work in defence is a “relationship game, meeting people, talking to them about their problems and helping them, giving them advice, etc.” This consultative approach requires a deep understanding of the MoD’s specific needs, internal processes, and, crucially, procurement rules.

“You’ve got to understand the procurement rules, and that you’re adhering to all of those rules,” Porton states. More importantly, you’ve got to listen first.

The “user first” philosophy

A common trap in large-scale technology projects is implementing a solution that addresses the symptom rather than the underlying problem. Porton’s philosophy at IBM is to always pivot the conversation back to the mission objective, “information advantage for service personnel”.

“Everything should be about the service personnel, whether frontline or back office. What effect are we trying to achieve and how can we make their life better,” he asserts. This means being a trusted advisor—a role that sometimes means recommending a solution that isn’t an IBM product. “We have to be a conscientious supplier,” he says.

The core of this engagement is a methodical approach to problem-solving:

1. Understand the Problem: Define what the customer is trying to achieve.
2. Identify Impact: Pinpoint where IBM can have the most significant effect—which “might not always be what the customer first asks for.”

Porton himself has a background rooted in practical, cutting-edge systems, from email synchronisation with early PDAs to current defence platforms. He notes that the “latest thing often creates hype and distracts from the best potential solution.”

A powerful example of finding the best solution, rather than the newest, came during IBM’s work with Royal Engineers assigned to a battlegroup. The original request was for Artificial Intelligence (AI), yet IBM’s team pursued a different path, Porton explained.

“A lot of what is seen to be an AI problem, can often be solved by a rules-based software,” Porton explains. They observed the Royal Engineers in training and while on exercise and identified a major bottleneck: while defending an area, the engineers spent around 30 minutes sketching up a plan, but the majority of their time was spent looking through bulky manuals for calculations and rules.

The solution was not a complex AI, but a small tool built with a simple rules engine—technology that has been in use in the finance sector for two decades. This simple intervention removed the need for manual lookups and calculation, allowing the engineers “far more time for planning” and helping them “catch all of the details,” he explained. 

This project reflects a broader lesson in process improvement that IBM also applies internally: don’t automate a bad process. “You shouldn’t automate the process but review the process and check that it’s working properly, then automate or improve steps as needed,” Porton advises. The defence reforms, such as the National Armaments and Acquisition System (NAADS) and other recent initiatives, present a clear opportunity for the MoD to review processes that, as became clear during COVID, often added little value. “Automating what you already do is not the right approach,” he said. 

“AI in the business space is quite well understood,” Porton says. In areas like HR, finance, and supply chains, AI can deliver substantial savings, freeing up resources—money, people, and expertise—to focus on more complex, mission-critical challenges. “There’s an awful lot that we can do in that space,” he confirms, noting that these functions are fundamentally similar to those in any other large organisation.

Low-risk innovation: The client engineering approach

To help customers realise these benefits, IBM offers a unique, low-risk route to innovation through its Client Engineering team. This is IBM’s investment in creating tangible proof-of-concepts (PoCs) at no cost to the customer. “We ask for their people and time to work together on a project,” Porton explains. This collaborative process ensures that the solution is relevant and customer-owned from the outset. Yes, you read that correctly, the Client Engineering team supports projects at no cost to the customer.

The process is highly structured:

1. Problem Statement: The team takes the challenge provided by the customer.
2. Workshops: They run workshops to identify a focused area for improvement.
3. Hypothesis: They develop a proof-of-concept around a specific hypothesis of what the benefits will be.
4. Demonstration: A concise 4–6 week project is run to show tangible benefits.

“This process provides a safe way for the customer to test a concept and build the business case needed to secure funding and take the solution further,” Porton told me. He concluded by re-emphasising that, “the capability at IBM is platform and industry agnostic, we have some specialised staff on defence, but it’s about bringing the strength of IBMs global presence to defence problems. We can look at where we have solved the customer’s problem before and help them leverage things that maybe some of their allies have done to get there quicker.” 

Calibre comment: Well-trodden paths

As Stephen noted at the start of the interview, IBM might not always be at the forefront of people’s minds, especially when it comes to defence. However, it is apparent that the company has a lot to offer, especially if it can draw on its experience in the commercial sphere. The UK MoD certainly has many hurdles to overcome in the next decade, and it could be prudent to draw on the accumulated knowledge of an organisation that has already solved those same challenges in other industries. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on 15 October, 2025. The lead image shows Stephen in front of the wall at IBM’s London office explaining the company’s long history. Credit: IBM Technology.