Overview
- HII, which signed the exploratory agreement with GrayMatter Robotics on Monday, will run pilots to bring Physical AI robots into shipbuilding workflows.
- Early demonstrations at GMR’s Carson, California center showed robots sanding, grinding, blasting, coating and inspecting metal parts to cut repetitive, strenuous work for shipyard crews.
- The collaboration targets four tracks: developing autonomous shipbuilding capabilities, linking GMR tools with other yard tech, training workers to use automation, and scaling unmanned‑system production.
- HII says shipbuilding throughput rose 14% in 2025 and it is targeting another 15% in 2026, with any proven solutions slated to feed into its High‑Yield Production Robotics (HYPR) effort.
- Executives describe the next 12 months as a year of demonstrations to validate performance before scaling, while GMR’s claims of up to 12x throughput and 95% less rework remain unproven in shipyard production.