Scaling Autonomous Surface Vessels with the World's Best Ship Builders for US Navy

April 20, 2026

Last November, Anduril and HD Hyundai announced plans to design and produce a new class of Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASV) that combines HD Hyundai’s legacy in shipbuilding with Anduril’s speed-to-market, software-defined autonomy and mission systems integration expertise. Today, that ship is in production, and Anduril is on a path to bring the expertise of the world’s best shipbuilders to the US Navy.

The strategic calculus driving this collaboration has only come into sharper focus. China continues to outbuild the U.S. Navy at a rate of three to one, while Russia contests Western access to the Arctic and the Black Sea. Defending commercial shipping and maintaining sea control with exquisite manned platforms carries an untenable price tag, and it simply is no longer realistic.

The Navy's solution to this problem is the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) program, an effort focused on building a distributed, autonomous surface fleet that will enable coordinated operations in contested environments on the timelines, budgets, and scales required to deter the threat. Anduril is ready to compete on MUSV with the best shipbuilding partners in the world.

What We've Been Building
Our partnership with HD Hyundai is on track. We selected HD Hyundai for their proven reputation as one of the world's foremost shipbuilders and their ability to move from design to production quickly; HD Hyundai has delivered over 5000 vessels globally. Following the successful completion of our critical design review, construction on our first ASV is underway, and the ship is on track to be in the water and tested by the end of this year. While the first hull takes shape in Korea, Anduril has been conducting daily at-sea testing of vehicle autonomy, mission autonomy, and containerized payloads on a surrogate vessel — accumulating open-water operational data that will transfer directly to the first production hull upon delivery. This testing will be instrumental in moving from production to operations of our first vessel.

The US Navy has been clear: scale is what matters. A single autonomous ship doesn’t move the needle. We’re working with a team of commercial shipbuilding all-stars with the capacity and expertise required to deliver for the US Navy’s MUSV program. Commercial shipbuilders are essential to this effort because they already operate at scale, producing large numbers of reliable vessels efficiently, on time, and on a disciplined budget. Hyundai’s global shipbuilding capacity and deep technical expertise are central to this approach, which is why we partnered with them. HD Hyundai will construct the ASV at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ shipyard in Ulsan and provide key AI solutions for the vessel, including autonomous navigation technology. Avikus, HD Hyundai’s subsidiary specializing in autonomous navigation, has supplied autonomous navigation solutions to approximately 500 large vessels to date, establishing itself as a leader in the global maritime autonomy market.

The Fleet Takes Shape
Anduril is establishing the production infrastructure to build and sustain a fleet at scale. In the United States, Anduril is partnering with Edison Chouest Offshore, one of the most experienced shipbuilders in the country, to produce ASVs at Edison Chouest U.S. shipyards — leveraging ECO’s multi-billion-dollar domestic infrastructure and workforce of over 6,000 shipyard employees.

Edison Chouest Offshore operates roughly 300 vessels globally and owns over 20 shipbuilding facilities across the United States, bringing decades of operational and shipbuilding experience to this alliance.

HD Hyundai in Korea and Edison Chouest Offshore in the United States each bring distinct industrial capabilities to a common production enterprise — one structured for the breadth, resilience, and tempo that fielding a distributed autonomous surface fleet demands. Anduril is uniquely bringing together this all-star team of commercial shipbuilders for the MUSV program — being the only company leveraging the existing global commercial shipbuilding base to deliver the scale, speed, and throughput MUSV requires, rather than relying on legacy naval production models that cannot meet demand.

Source : Anduril Industries