America’s largest shipbuilder HII has signed a memorandum of understanding with California-based GrayMatter Robotics to explore integrating AI-driven robotic systems into its shipbuilding operations, the company stated.
The agreement covers four areas of potential collaboration: autonomous shipbuilding capability development, integration of GrayMatter’s technologies with existing shipbuilding initiatives, workforce training for automation, and scaling unmanned system production. The partnership would initially focus on bringing autonomous surface preparation, coating, and inspection technologies into shipyard processes.
Eric Chewning, HII’s executive vice president of maritime systems and corporate strategy, was quoted as saying: “We are in the midst of an American shipbuilding renaissance and we are extremely excited to partner with GrayMatter Robotics to explore incorporating their state-of-the-art physical AI models into our shipbuilding operations.”
He added that HII’s shipbuilding throughput rose 14% in 2025 and the company is targeting a further 15% increase in 2026, according to the announcement. Chewning said the partnership would feed into HII’s High-Yield Production Robotics initiative, describing it as having “the potential to increase our throughput efficiency without sacrificing quality.”
Ariyan Kabir, GrayMatter Robotics CEO and co-founder, said: “We will push to drive down delivery time, build our arsenal, build the essential components for our war fighters, and we have to do this very, very quickly. Bridging that gap between demand and capacity is of utmost importance.”
Much of shipbuilding work remains hands-on and highly skilled, with tasks such as sandblasting, grinding, and coating requiring strict adherence to specifications. HII said AI-driven technologies offer opportunities to reduce repetitive work and improve consistency.
The UK MOD needs to boost shipbuilding time spans to re-energise the RN with new warships. It has been rumoured that the Treasury has deliberately held back funds that could accelerate T26 manufacturing; if true, such behaviour would be extremely crass, given the poor state of the fleet. Robotics is a clear answer to speed up labour-intensive elements, where feasible, and this new technology is improving rapidly and should be embraced.