Looks like the primes still have something going for them after all. This morning, unmanned surface vessel (USV) company HavocAI announced that it’s teaming up with Lockheed Martin to beef up its medium USV fleet.
HavocAI CEO Paul Lwin told Tectonic that the most critical part of the partnership will be integrating Lockheed’s advanced sensors and payloads (read: things that go boom) onto his company’s 100-foot vessel, which it plans to deliver by the end of the year.
“[Lockheed] understands what it takes to take a surface vessel and make it into an integrated weapon system,” Lwin said, “We will build the vessels and we will put our autonomy stack on it, and they will help us integrate the weapons systems.”
Speedy quick: HavocAI has scaled up at a pretty impressive clip. The company was founded in 2024, and by the end of the year, had boats in the water and $11M in funding, led by Trousdale and Scout Ventures.
- The company kicked things off with the 14-foot Rampage USV, a super-low-cost sea drone that can be deployed in swarms in vast bodies of water like the Indo-Pacific.
- Earlier this year, they unveiled the 38-foot Seahound and integrated Havoc’s autonomy stack on a 42-foot KaiKoa ASV, built by R&D firm PacMar.
- Lwin says that the company plans to have a 100-foot USV in the water by December, and they’re exploring whether they can go even bigger—if that’s what the Navy needs.
Dozens of Havoc’s vessels are already deployed around the world with the DoD, and according to Lwin, the company has participated in 36 live demos.
- Rampage was deployed as Project Convergence and Silent Swarm.
- Earlier this year, DoD officials watched as the company remotely controlled 25 vessels scattered all over the world—everywhere from the North Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific—from a single control center in San Diego.
The bigger the better: As the Navy considers how to build out a hybrid fleet, it has put a lot of emphasis on medium and large surface vessels.
- Earlier this year, the service announced that the M-USV and L-USV programs will be combined into a single program.
- The Big Beautiful Bill—signed into law on Friday—allocated a cool $2.1B to medium USVs and $1.5B to small USVs.
- The Pentagon’s FY26 budget request also calls for $1.7B for “on the water autonomous systems,” which we’re taking to mean USVs.
Lwin said this was a clear demand signal from the Pentagon—the Navy wants bigger ships that can carry more serious payloads, travel further at higher speeds, and—hopefully—survive longer.
“We were working on this 100-foot vessel even five months ago,” he said, “But when the House started working on the reconciliation bill.. and we found out there was going to be $2.1 billion, we accelerated it.” He added that they’re already testing the big ‘ol sea drone in the water.
Major leagues: In case you didn’t know, Lockheed has a pretty firm chokehold on US military contracts. Last year, the company netted over $50B in government contracts—nearly 75% of Lockheed’s $71B revenue. The company has tens of billions of dollars in contracts with the Navy alone.
- In particular, Lockheed provides critical sensors to the Navy, including the AN/SQQ‑89 Undersea Warfare Combat System and the AN/SPY‑1 Radar (Aegis Combat System).
- It also provides a whole lot of surface-launched weapons systems, including the AGM‑158C LRASM and anti-submarine warfare rockets.
If HavocAI’s vessels are going to be ready for a potential 2027 fight with China in the Indo-Pacific, Lwin said, they will need to be integrated into the Navy’s existing systems—and fast. That means working with Lockheed as they develop new vessels to make sure all of their sensors and weapons systems can work on Havoc’s bigger boats from the get-go.
(Right now, Lwin says, they’re only working with Lockheed on the bigger USVs—the smaller ones were designed to be attritable and can’t carry big ol’ exquisite systems. Would be a shame to let a million-dollar system sink to the bottom of the Pacific.)
Lwin said that the two companies are still working out what exactly will be the best fit (and how much things will cost), but that they plan to have Lockheed’s systems built-in by the time they roll out the 100-foot USV in December.