The United States, United Kingdom and Australia have announced a landmark joint project to develop advanced underwater drone technology under the AUKUS defence pact, warning that the world's seabed is becoming a new theatre of conflict. The announcement was made at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's largest defence summit, held in Singapore, bringing together the three countries' defence ministers for a show of trilateral unity.
The uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) technology — described as the first "signature project" under Pillar Two of AUKUS, the strand focused on advanced defence capabilities — will include cutting-edge sensors, weapons systems, and adaptable multi-mission payloads. The UK will contribute £150 million ($201 million) to the effort, and the technology is expected to be operational by 2027. It is designed to protect subsea cables and pipelines, conduct surveillance and reconnaissance, and enable strike operations. UK Defence Secretary John Healey acknowledged past criticism of AUKUS's pace, conceding that "for too long in AUKUS, we talked too much and delivered too little", but insisted that had now changed.
The urgency behind the announcement was underscored by Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, who declared in stark terms that "the seabed is becoming a battlefield" and "the shadow fleet is becoming a weapon." Marles pointed to an historically unprecedented series of attacks on subsea infrastructure over the past 18 months — including five cable-cutting incidents in the Taiwan Strait attributed to China and three in the Baltic Sea alleged to involve Russia — while stopping short of ruling out the possibility of accidents. He also raised alarm over "shadow-fleet" vessels, unregistered ships operating in a grey zone between commercial shipping and state coercion, which he said were simultaneously being used for sanctions evasion, illegal fishing and the trafficking of people and drugs. About 99% of Australia's internet traffic flows through just 15 subsea cables, making the country acutely vulnerable. The UK, similarly, is connected by around 60 undersea cables, with British officials reporting a 30% rise in Russian vessel activity in UK waters in recent years.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth reaffirmed Washington's commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, stating that the Trump administration would not allow any single power to dominate the Pacific. He confirmed that the rotation of US and UK nuclear-powered submarines through HMAS Stirling, a naval base in Western Australia, remained on track, with the first US Navy personnel due to arrive later this year. Separately, Australia confirmed it would purchase three second-hand Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the United States in the 2030s — a refinement of earlier plans intended to simplify logistics and reduce costs.
The AUKUS pact, launched in 2021, is widely understood as a strategic response to China's expanding maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific, particularly in disputed waters such as the South China Sea. Its longer-term goal — delivering purpose-built nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia and the UK by the 2040s — remains a generational undertaking, but Thursday's UUV announcement signals that the alliance is also moving quickly on near-term capabilities. Marles called on Beijing to demonstrate greater transparency in its maritime operations, arguing that doing so would serve China's own interest in regional stability.