Autonomous ambition: NavyX plots a course to machine-speed warfare

In early April, the UK Royal Navy (RN) lifted the veil on a bold initiative intended to ‘mainstream’ the introduction of autonomous technologies into the front-line fleet. Given the name NavyX, this joint military/industry technology accelerator has been funded through the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) Transformation Fund to engineer a generational leap in the ways and means by which the RN procures, integrates, proves, and scales autonomous systems.

BAE System’s P950 rigid inflatable boat (RIB) technology demonstrator is a private-venture development intended to demonstrate and de-risk an autonomous sea boat based on the company’s Pacific 24 RIB.

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BAE System’s P950 rigid inflatable boat (RIB) technology demonstrator is a private-venture development intended to demonstrate and de-risk an autonomous sea boat based on the company’s Pacific 24 RIB. (Richard Scott/NAVYPIX)

This desire to think and act differently has been driven by multiple factors. First, there is a changing and fast-evolving threat across multiple dimensions: the hybrid warfare ‘grey zone’ in which adversaries exploit economic, political, cyber, media, and social environments to seek advantage; the development of new weapon technologies, ranging from low-cost, improvised unmanned explosive devices and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) ‘swarms’ to hypersonic missiles and directed-energy weapons; and the re-emergence of peer and near-peer adversaries, which demands the ability to readily scale up to high-end warfare.

Secondly, the RN finds itself in a world of ever-faster technology cycles where data, digitisation, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly pervasive. This presents a challenge to an organisation and supporting infrastructure that is largely founded on the expectation that major capital assets would be procured to serve for up to three decades or more.