"The U.S. builds "the best warships in the world," said Rylan Hamilton, CEO and cofounder of autonomous vessel startup Blue Water Autonomy. "They can get hit by a missile, and still operate and survive. But to get there, we've built up layers and layers of requirements based on almost 100 years of lessons operating ships at sea. And these layers of requirements make it really difficult to adopt modern technology."
"the technology that service members rely on in the field is often less connected, less flexible, and in many cases less advanced than the underlying technology they use when they're at home with their families, catching Ubers and ordering packages on Amazon. Around this problem, a boom in defense tech has flourished: Between 2021 and 2023, VCs poured nearly $100 billion into defense tech, a 40% leap as compared to the seven years before put together."
The U.S. Navy operates highly survivable ships built on decades of layered requirements that make integrating modern commercial technology difficult. Many onboard systems appear decades old, creating a capability divide between military and civilian consumer tech. Venture capital investment into defense technology has surged, signaling strong private-sector interest in modernization. Rylan Hamilton combined naval service and robotics entrepreneurship to found Blue Water Autonomy with the goal of producing autonomous, unmanned ships tailored to Navy needs. The effort seeks to reconcile durable ship design with fast-moving technological change to preserve operational relevance.
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