US HII Signs $900 Million Robotics Production Agreement

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has signed a seven-year performance-based production agreement with Path Robotics and GrayMatter Robotics to develop and deploy automated manufacturing systems for U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs. Under the agreement, HII plans to award up to $900 million in shipbuilding work to the two companies, with the final amount contingent upon technology maturity, manufacturing readiness, and production performance, covering construction tasks for aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, amphibious ships, future frigates, and unmanned surface vessels.

The agreement falls under HII's High-Yield Production Robotics (HYPR) program, which aims to integrate robotics and artificial intelligence technologies into complex shipbuilding processes. Eric Chewning, HII's Executive Vice President of Maritime Systems and Corporate Strategy, stated that the company is making generational investments to develop new shipbuilding capabilities and expand capacity, and that this collaboration will define a new path for robotics in shipbuilding—automated production adapted to extreme complexity, mixed-variety, and scale.

As planned, the project will proceed through development and delivery phases. During the development phase, Path Robotics and GrayMatter Robotics will collaborate with HII to develop, test, and qualify autonomous production technologies for manufacturing processes such as welding, grinding, sandblasting, painting, assembly, and inspection; in the subsequent phase, the two companies will integrate the relevant technologies into autonomous production lines, with equipment and processes subject to testing, qualification, and oversight to ensure compliance with Navy shipbuilding standards.

If the systems meet cost, schedule, and quality requirements, HII will begin procuring shipbuilding work during the delivery phase. Production will start with small steel structures and then expand to larger units and modules. This model aims to shift more manufacturing and assembly work off-site from the shipyard, completing upstream processes before final assembly, thereby supplementing HII's existing distributed shipbuilding network.

Andy Lonsberry, CEO and co-founder of Path Robotics, stated that the company has long believed in the transformative potential of physical AI for manufacturing, and that the HYPR program is a strong validation of this vision, demonstrating that physical AI can scale shipbuilding capacity in the most demanding production environments. Ariyan Kabir, CEO and co-founder of GrayMatter Robotics, noted that the agreement combines AI with autonomous production systems designed to continuously adapt and improve over time.