Software company Govini on Wednesday said it has been tapped by the Navy to help identify issues across parts of the nuclear submarine industrial base.
The company said this means the Navy will deploy their flagship Ark software product “to continuously identify vulnerabilities across its industrial base using factors such as financial health, production capacity, and foreign influence.”
The company specified this effort covers “revitalization of the industrial base of the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad,” meaning nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). It is focused on workflows to support missile and warhead technologies.
Navy officials in April told lawmakers the first in a new class of SSBNs, the future USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826), is running 12 to 18 months late while it is currently over 50 percent complete. The second new SSBN, the future USS Wisconsin (SSBN-827), is set to be delivered in 2032, 80 months after start of construction.
At the time, officials explained the delays were due to shipbuilder performance, supply chain problems, testing and complexity in first-in-class boat construction. Navy officials said the current level of submarine industrial base investments have so far largely improved industrial base hiring, increasing vendor capacity in some market spaces and working through more strategic outsourcing and adding manufacturing technology.
Govini argued that with their information their Ark software product finds will help the Navy make better informed decisions based on capacity, dynamics and risk indicators to field missile and nuclear warhead technologies faster.
“As America’s adversaries aggressively modernize their forces, Govini stands with the U.S. Navy to ensure our readiness,” Govini CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty said in a statement. “With AI-powered Applications and proprietary data, Ark gives the Navy the ability to make production and sustainment decisions with unmatched speed and precision.”
Beginning next decade, Columbia boats will replace Ohio-class submarines as the carrier of the Navy’s Trident II-D5 intercontinental ballistic missiles, which will carry two variants of the W76 warhead and the W-87 Alt 370 warhead.
Later, Columbia will carry missiles armed with the W93 warhead, the first nuclear weapon since the end of the Cold War that will not be an overhauled or refurbished version of an existing weapon.
A version of this story was first posted in Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.
