U.S. Navy shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) and enterprise AI application software company C3.ai, Inc. have expanded their partnership aimed at accelerating shipbuilding throughput.
In a June 30 announcement, the companies said the new agreement expands their preexisting partnership to now integrate artificial intelligence (AI) solutions across shipbuilding operations like planning, operations, supply chain, labor allocation, and uncrewed vehicle production and sustainment.
HII is an integrated subcontractor to Los Alamos National Laboratory prime Triad Nuclear Security, providing personnel for nuclear operations and manufacturing at the New Mexico nuclear-weapons design lab. HII also produces nuclear-armed Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and nuclear-powered Virginia-class attack submarines.
Previously, the companies had a six-month initial Enterprise AI production deployment program at HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascaoula, Miss., wherein shipbuilding teams used “complex algorithms to adjust and optimize work schedules.”
The companies said initial deployment, based on the C3 Agentic AI Platform, “demonstrated significant improvements in schedule performance, an effort which will now be scaled across HII shipyards.”
The new efforts will start by leveraging AI to enhance planning and schedule at both HII’s main shipbuilding facilities: Ingalls Shipbuilding and Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
HII builds amphibious ships and destroyers at Ingalls while the Newport News site makes nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines.
In the press release, the companies said this alliance marks a major milestone in the digitization of the defense industrial base.
