[ad_1]
With Anduril’s assist, Australia has achieved what the U.S. Navy has struggled to perform: transition an extra-large undersea drone from white board to beneath contract in simply three years.
Anduril introduced Tuesday {that a} fleet of its XL uncrewed undersea automobile (XLUUV) “Ghost Shark” will start operations in Australian waters subsequent 12 months beneath a large AUS$1.7 billion (US$1.1 billion) contract.
The five-year award construction is the defense-startup holy grail; it’s a program of file that primarily locks in recurring income by turning into a line merchandise within the nation’s protection funds. The contract for the platform, which supplies long-range, stealthy surveillance and strike operations, covers supply, upkeep, and continued growth.
It additionally displays political urgency in Australia to discipline new capabilities within the Indo-Pacific to discourage the rising risk from China.
“On the finish of the day, this comes right down to having seriousness, having creativeness, and having will to conceive a brand new concept and convey it to fruition. And that’s what the Australian authorities has achieved,” Anduril President Chris Brose mentioned in an interview. “Australia has fewer folks, quite a bit much less cash, and lots of the identical bureaucratic challenges that our Pentagon has, they usually have been in a position to accomplish this.”
The distinction with the US is stark.
The one XLUUV beneath growth, Boeing’s Orca, is years not on time. By comparability, Anduril and Australia co-developed and collectively funded Ghost Shark in 2022, every placing in $50 million. The primary prototype was delivered in April 2024, twelve months forward of schedule, and manufacturing has already begun.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
This system presents a brand new mannequin for protection procurement. Anduril put a few of its personal capital on the road to derisk Australia’s in any other case fast acquisition timeline.
Anduril isn’t stopping with Australia.
SVP Of Maritime, Shane Arnott, mentioned Ghost Shark could be quickly “missionized in nation,” that means that governments can plug in their very own payload modules as wanted. Anduril has already produced a U.S. payload that’s being examined off the California coast, and it has stood up a 150,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Rhode Island to supply Ghost Sharks within the U.S. if a contract materializes.
“The US has had an XLUUV program that has been struggling for the higher a part of a decade,” Brose mentioned. “It has spent a considerably larger amount of cash on that program than the Australian Authorities and Anduril have spent growing the Ghost Shark functionality, and it’s additional behind. We have now spent extra time in, on, and beneath the water. We have now a capability to work throughout extra missions. We’re extra able to go. We’re extra able to ship at scale, and we’ll do all of that at a cheaper price.”
For Australia, the urgency is obvious. It’s the largest island nation with a small inhabitants and proximity to Western adversaries. Chief amongst them is China, which has quickly expanded its navy and pushed its ships deeper into the Pacific, together with conducting provocative drills off the coast of Australia. That strain has made Ghost Shark a compelling resolution.
[ad_2]
{content material}
Supply: {feed_title}