US and Royal Navy will Collaborate to Work Jointly on AI and ML

Recently, the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy have decided to work on various methods to establish links between their digital delivery teams. They will also discuss some of the test methods for international collaboration and develop deeper technical collaboration around artificial intelligence and machine learning.

In August 2020, the work started as a part of a wider initiative that aims to establish better technology co-operations between the two countries.

In digital and AI at both organizations, senior leaders have the objective to develop, explore, and demonstrate how these applications work together in an interoperable way. They also want to explore how they can interchangeably use each other’s technology.

The U.S-U.K. development squadrons will be created under a shared long-term vision from support fleet operations centers, interoperability, and tactical-level units with joint service partners.
The collaboration plan was devised by Royal Navy Digital Services and the US Navy under that mandate to look at specific pieces of technology and the methods, the organizations use to research, design, and build software.

In a blog post, Layna Nelson, systems engineer, and U.S. Navy secondee said “effective foreign collaboration is considered important in improving a country’s capabilities. and those of allies while bringing different perspectives into digital teams. However, that can be challenging due to factors such as bureaucracy and different time zones. The pandemic adds to those hurdles with the impossibility of quality face-to-face interactions.”

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To tackle those obstacles, the Navies used a two-day virtual workshop to share best practices in collaboration and digital delivery on development and research.
In the event, there were two teams involved: one working for the Royal Navy’s application to support maritime sustainment planning, and the second was working on delivering an application for the US Navy, to enable digital maritime maneuver planning.

In the months to come, according to Nelson, international agreements and collaborative software development will take place.
He says “Throughout this path-finding process, we’ll be learning and evolving with the goal of developing better digital and intelligent capabilities and teams to make our Navies stronger.”