SYDNEY – Australia will invest A$1.7 billion (S$1.44 billion) to develop and manufacture a long-range autonomous vehicle, known as ghost shark, as the nation boosts its naval capabilities, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said.

Ghost shark will be built under a contract with Anduril Australia, Mr Marles told reporters in Sydney on Sept 10 flanked by Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy and the chief executive of Anduril Australia.

“This is the highest tech capability in the world,” Mr Marles added. “It exemplifies the fact that Australia is leading the world in terms of autonomous underwater military capabilities.”

A ghost shark is capable of engaging in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike, Mr Marles said.

The first vehicles will be in service by the beginning of 2026, Mr Marles said, and the government expects to have “dozens” in operation over the next five years.

“There is a specific number, but we’re not making that public,” he added.

Australia has been overhauling and upgrading its defense capabilities in response to an increasingly contested region, with rapidly China expanding its military power.

As an open trading island nation flanked by the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Australia relies on secure sea lanes to move goods in and out of the country.

The announcement is the latest step by Canberra to shift the nation’s military posture toward improving long-range attack and area denial capabilities.

“We have consistently articulated that Australia faces the most complex, in some ways, the most threatening strategic landscape that we have had since the end of the second World War,” Mr Marles said. 

“All that we’re doing in terms of spending more on defence, in terms of building a more capable defence force is to deter conflicts and to provide for the peace and stability of the region in which we live.”

Simultaneously, Australia is working with the US and UK to build and equip a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for Canberra to field, potentially as early as the 2030s, as part of the Aukus agreement signed in 2021. 

In 2024, the government announced plans to invest A$21 billion over a decade to ramp up domestic missile and munitions manufacturing to develop a long-range strike capability in the face of a regional arms race. BLOOMBERG

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