The Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS New Hampshire arrives at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia on Sept. 3, 2025, for a depot modernization period. (Shelby West/Norfolk Naval Shipyard)
The Navy is investing $448 million in AI and autonomy to speed up use of the technologies across the shipbuilding industry as part of efforts to revitalize it and encourage innovation, the service announced this week.
The investment in the Navy’s Shipbuilding Operating System will use software from American technology giant Palantir to offer shipbuilders, shipyards and suppliers the resources needed to modernize their operations, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said Tuesday in a statement.
“By enabling industry to adopt AI and autonomy tools at scale, we’re helping the shipbuilding industry improve schedules, increase capacity, and reduce costs,” Phelan said. He added that the initiative was about “doing business smarter and building the industrial capability our Navy and nation require.”
The initiative will aggregate data from planning systems and databases, among other sources, to eliminate bottlenecks, streamline workflows and mitigate risk, allowing for quicker, more informed decisions, the Navy said.
For example, using AI helped one shipbuilder reduce submarine schedule planning from 160 manual hours to under 10 minutes while another was able to cut material review times from weeks to under one hour, according to the statement.
The initial effort will focus on submarine shipbuilders, shipyards and suppliers with expansion to surface ship programs as the Navy validates and refines the approach, according to the statement.
Phelan has promised to reshape how the Navy builds and fields ships with a focus on cutting costs and getting vessels to sea faster.
In November, he announced that the Navy was canceling the bulk of the $22 billion Constellation-class frigate program that had been beset with delays and cost overruns. Just two of the ships, already under construction, will be completed.
The move would free up money and shipyard space for other projects, Phelan said in a video posted to his X account on Nov. 25.
A little more than a week later, in another video, Phelan said the Navy had selected the design for its medium landing ships, calling the choice a second step in overhauling the service’s shipbuilding efforts.
The roughly 4,000-ton vessels, designed by Dutch shipbuilder Damen, can carry cargo and Marines more than 3,400 miles, offering “the right balance of capability, affordability and speed to field,” Phelan said in the Dec. 5 post to his X account.
Its crane, berthing, helicopter and cargo capacities make “it an excellent choice for the Marine Corps requirement of no less than 35 medium landing ships to support naval expeditionary forces,” Gen. Eric Smith, Marine Corps commandant, said in the video.
The ship offers Marines the agility and flexibility needed in austere environments where there are no ports, Smith added.
Under a Trump Administration working plan dubbed “The Golden Fleet,” the Navy could grow from its current 287 ships to as many as 300 crewed vessels.
Stars and Stripes report Gary Warner in Washington state contributed to this report.
