Overview
- The United States, United Kingdom and Australia on Saturday announced the first official AUKUS Pillar Two signature project to jointly develop interchangeable payloads for uncrewed undersea vehicles, with initial deliveries due from 2027.
- Ministers said the UUV payloads will include sensors, weapons and enabling systems that are designed to be fitted across all three nations' UUV fleets to support surveillance, strike, anti-submarine and mine‑countermeasure tasks.
- The UK has committed about £150 million to the project and winning firms from the AUKUS Maritime Innovation Challenge have been selected to begin development and testing work.
- At the same meeting the partners agreed to streamline Australia’s Pillar One purchases so Canberra will receive three in‑service Virginia‑class submarines transferred from the US, and finalised plans for Submarine Rotational Force‑West at HMAS Stirling with rotations starting in 2027.
- Officials framed the package as a response to criticism that Pillar Two had lagged and as a way to better protect critical undersea cables and pipelines, while key program costs, some export and licence‑free industrial details, and full timelines remain to be published.