SINGAPORE — The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia signed an agreement to jointly develop technologies for Uncrewed Underwater Vessels (UUVs) during a defense ministers’ meeting on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. This UUV project is the first officially announced initiative under Pillar 2 of the AUKUS pact.

Pillar 2 of AUKUS is designed to pool the defense capabilities of the three nations to develop advanced military technologies. The new agreement includes joint development of payloads such as sensors and weapons systems for deployment across all three countries’ UUV fleets. Each nation will initially focus on a different type of payload effect, which will be interchangeable and integrated by all partners before jointly producing trilateral payloads and enabling technologies.

The UUV technology is intended to protect underwater cables and pipelines. The project will enhance interoperability through shared standards, trilateral operational concepts, and common control systems. AUKUS leaders also confirmed their support for expanding the AUKUS license-free environment by narrowing the list of excluded technologies, though further details were not available.

“This project is intended to enhance AUKUS partners’ ability to protect critical national seabed infrastructure; deploy cutting edge surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike capabilities; conduct logistics operations; and bolster superiority in anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, mine countermeasures, electronic warfare, and contested littoral manoeuvre,” according to a joint statement issued by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey, and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles.

The first deliveries of payloads developed under the agreement will begin in 2027. The U.K. government has committed £150 million ($201.8 million) to the initiative. “Make no mistake, this is a big step forward. It’s a breakthrough that has not been achieved in the AUKUS partnership before now,” U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey said.

Healey stated that the UUV project would “rapidly give our forces advanced battle technologies” and help deal with threats to underwater infrastructure. He also said, “For too long in AUKUS, we talked too much and delivered too little. That has now changed under our three governments.” The three defense ministers did not respond to questions about whether the project was aimed at countering Russian or Chinese undersea activities or whether AUKUS progress had been too slow.