HII, America’s largest military shipbuilder, and C3 AI, the Enterprise AI application software company, have announced a strategic partnership to expand digital technologies and apply artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate shipbuilding throughput at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding divisions, the shipbuilding company said in its news release.
HII is broadening an existing partnership with C3 AI to integrate AI solutions across its shipbuilding operations, including in the areas of planning, operations, supply chain and labor allocation. These efforts are expected to accelerate production and support the U.S. Navy’s fleet readiness needs. The collaboration will also include opportunities in uncrewed vehicle production and sustainment.
The collaboration builds on a six-month initial Enterprise AI production deployment program conducted at Ingalls Shipbuilding, where shipbuilding teams leveraged complex algorithms to adjust and optimize work schedules. The initial deployment of the C3 AI application — powered by the C3 Agentic AI Platform — demonstrated significant improvements in schedule performance, an effort which will now be scaled across HII shipyards.
Initial efforts will focus on leveraging AI to enhance planning and scheduling at HII’s two shipbuilding divisions: Ingalls Shipbuilding, which builds amphibious ships and destroyers for the U.S. Navy; and Newport News Shipbuilding, which constructs U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy.
This alliance marks a significant milestone in the digitization of America’s defense industrial base and reflects the commitment of both companies to strengthening U.S. naval capabilities through innovation.
About HII
HII is a global, all-domain defense provider. HII’s mission is to deliver the world’s most powerful ships and all-domain solutions in service of the nation, creating the advantage for our customers to protect peace and freedom around the world. As the nation’s largest military shipbuilder, and with a more than 135-year history of advancing U.S. national security, HII delivers critical capabilities extending from ships to unmanned systems, cyber, ISR, AI/ML and synthetic training. Headquartered in Virginia, HII’s workforce is 44,000 strong.
About C3.ai, Inc.
C3 AI is the Enterprise AI application software company. C3 AI delivers a family of fully integrated products including the C3 Agentic AI Platform, an end-to-end platform for developing, deploying, and operating enterprise AI applications, C3 AI applications, a portfolio of industry-specific SaaS enterprise AI applications that enable the digital transformation of organizations globally, and C3 Generative AI, a suite of domain-specific generative AI offerings for the enterprise.