AUKUS宣布其首个支柱II标志性项目：无人海底能力

1 June 2026 The trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, known as AUKUS, wasestablished in 2021, and is organised into two strands. Pillar I supports Australia’s acquisitionof a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability; Pillar II pools the threenations’ work on advanced military capabilities. Pillar II has, to date, attracted criticism in somequarters for slow progress by comparison with the submarine programme. On 30 May 2026, atthe Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore, the three nations announced the firstsignature project under Pillar II: the joint development of payloads and enabling systems foruncrewed undersea vehicles (UUVs), with first capabilities expected in service from 2027. Theaccompanying joint statement also recorded progress across the submarine programme and acommitment to widen the trilateral licence-free environment for defence trade.1 The Singapore meeting was attended by the UK defencesecretary, John Healey, the Australian deputy prime ministerand minister for defence, Richard Marles, and the USsecretary of defence, Pete Hegseth. Mr Healey acknowledgedthe criticism directly, stating that “for too long in AUKUS, wetalked too much and delivered too little,” and that “that hasnow changed under our three governments.”3 Background AUKUS was announced in September 2021 and set twoobjectives: the delivery to Australia of nuclear-poweredsubmarines, and trilateral cooperation on a defined setof advanced capabilities. Under the submarine pathwayannounced in March 2023, Australia is to host a rotationalpresence of UK and US submarines at HMAS Stirling inWestern Australia from 2027, to purchase three US Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s, and, with the UK, tobuild a new class of submarine known as SSN-AUKUS fordelivery at around the same time. Pillar II, by contrast, coversa defined set of advanced-capability areas, among themundersea warfare, hypersonic and counter-hypersonicsystems, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence andautonomy, advanced cyber- and electronic warfare, togetherwith an innovation strand under which the partners runperiodic competitions for industry. The submarine programmeis making more visible progress; Pillar II, until now, has notmoved with the same tempo, hence some of the criticismsince the inception of AUKUS.2 The first Pillar II signature project The signature project is the first capability project to beformally designated under Pillar II. According to the jointstatement, the partners will develop payloads and enablingsystems for their UUVs, with delivery beginning in 2027.The stated purpose is to protect critical national seabedinfrastructure, to carry surveillance, reconnaissance and strikecapabilities, to conduct logistics tasks, and to strengthenthe partners’ position in antisubmarine and antisurfacewarfare, mine countermeasures, electronic warfare andoperations in contested coastal waters. The payloads, whichinclude sensors and weapons systems, are intended to beinteroperable across the three nations’ UUV fleets, and theUK has said that it will contribute £150 million to the project.4 The list nonetheless continues to include classified payloadsfor UUVs and related signature-reduction techniques,which runs the risk of capturing the category of technologythat the new signature project is intended to develop. Thecommitment to narrow the list may therefore directly beconnected with the project: without it, the most sensitivecollaborative work on UUV payloads may fall back into theordinary licensing regime rather than moving licence-free.Industry will no doubt be performing careful analysis in thisspace following the announcements at Shangri-La. The designation of the first signature project will doubtlessbe viewed by industry as an encouraging signal that theadvanced capabilities strand of AUKUS has begun to movefrom concept to delivery. That signal was reinforced by aparallel announcement at the same meeting, where the UKnamed the winners of the 2025 AUKUS Maritime InnovationChallenge, a competition under the Pillar II innovation stranddirected at the command, control and teaming of underseasystems. Four suppliers will share £3 million in developmentfunding, three of them UK companies: Decision AnalysisServices Ltd, a small enterprise based in Basingstoke;SEA Ltd, a larger enterprise based in Frome; and A-2i, amicroconsultancy based in Dorchester. The fourth, MSITransducers, is based near Boston in the US. That commitment is, for the present, a political undertakingrather than a regulatory change. No amendment to theoriginal excluded-technologies list has been published as atthe date of this alert, and the obligations of the licence-freeenvironment continue to apply. The licence-free environment and theexcluded technologies list Outlook For industry, the most consequential element of theSingapore meeting may be the least visible. The jointstatement recorded a commitment to widen