Australia, the United Kingdom and United States are working to develop unmanned undersea vehicles as part of their trilateral AUKUS defense pact, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters on May 30, 2026. AUKUS said in a joint statement that delivery of the vehicles will start in 2027.
The program will improve the three nations’ reconnaissance and strike capabilities, and “bolster superiority in anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, mine countermeasures, electronic warfare, and contested littoral maneuver,” the statement added. The program comes under AUKUS’s so-called Pillar 2 to develop advanced defense technology including quantum computing, undersea, hypersonic, artificial intelligence and cyber technology.
“The signature project will deliver a suite of highly adaptable multi-mission UUV [unmanned undersea vehicle] payloads designed to support undersea operations and maintain our collective advantage in the maritime domain,” Hegseth said.
Formed by the three countries in 2021, AUKUS is part of their efforts to push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
“This will rapidly give our forces the very most advanced battlefield technologies as together we produce a range of cutting-edge sensors and weapons systems for undersea drones,” U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey said. The unmanned undersea vehicles will sharpen the countries’ ability to respond to threats, including those targeting underwater cables and pipelines, he said.
“For too long in AUKUS, we talked too much and delivered too little,” said Healey, who was talking alongside Hegseth and Australia’s defense minister on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.