Defence Tech Firm Anduril to Make AI-Powered Underwater Drones for US Navy

The United States Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has recently awarded defense technology company Anduril a contract to develop artificial intelligence (AI) powered underwater drones.

Anduril will develop distributed, long-range, persistent underwater sensing and payload delivery large autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) for the United States Navy.

“In an era of strategic competition, our AUVs like Dive-LD provide urgently needed capability to deter maritime threats (worldwide). We are excited to work with our U.S. Government partners as we look to build advanced, affordable, and autonomous capabilities at scale in support of U.S. Navy priorities," Brian Schimpf, CEO and Co-Founder of Anduril said.

Interestingly, this is not the first time the U.S. Navy has leveraged emerging technologies like AI. Last year, the U.S., along with the UK and Australia unveiled plans to trial the use of AI to track Chinese submarines in the Pacific.

Under Aukus Pillar II, a trilateral security arrangement established in 2021 to uphold peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, the participating parties conducted tests involving the utilization of advanced AI on patrol aircraft.

This included the US's P-8A Poseidon aircraft, which is equipped for anti-submarine warfare, to analyze data from underwater detection devices employed by each country.

Pentagon’s Chatgpt

The use of AI is not just limited to the US Navy. The Pentagon’s IT Division is developing an AI-powered chatbot like ChatGPT, that can take data from multiple sources, plug it into a database, and run a large language model on top of it.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is in the process of developing a prototype that could be launched internally this year, according to reports.

In December 2023, the U.S. Army collaborated with the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) to create an application aimed at instructing soldiers on the use of AI tools. Dubbed Game-If-AI, the solution is tailored to equip personnel deployed in both technical and non-technical domains.