Blue Water Autonomy, a maritime tech startup, announced it is partnering with Louisiana-based Conrad Shipyard to assemble the new company’s first class of autonomous ships.

“Conrad is a world-class shipbuilder with proven capability, and this partnership puts us in a position to deliver ships quickly, while demonstrating the expertise and scale of existing U.S. shipbuilding capacity,” said Rylan Hamilton, co-founder of Blue Water Autonomy.

The Boston-based startup, launched earlier this year, was founded by Navy veterans in 2024 and is focused on designing and building unmanned surface vessels en masse.

To date, Blue Water has raised $61 million in Series A funding and recruited senior executives from General Dynamics and Serco.

Conrad Shipyard, which has five facilities along the Gulf Coast, specializes in building steel and aluminum auxiliary ships such as offshore support vessels, tugs, ferries and barges.

“Blue Water Autonomy’s design reflects the kind of forward-looking innovation that U.S. shipbuilders are ready to deliver,” said Cecil Hernandez, president and CEO of Conrad Shipyard. “We’re proud to support this program and help bring autonomous naval capabilities to life with the speed, precision, and craftsmanship we’ve been trusted to deliver for over 75 years across commercial and military shipbuilding.”

Blue Water’s partnership is one in a series of fresh announcements from unmanned surface vessel producers since the Navy hosted the industry earlier this year to discuss its new Modular Attack Surface Craft program. That program aims to outfit the service’s future fleet with easy-to-produce autonomous surface vessels that can be equipped with a variety of payloads.

Since that industry day, companies such as Senesco Marine, BlackSea Technologies, and shipbuilding giant HII have all unveiled new unmanned vessels and partnership agreements, either ostensibly or explicitly aimed at capturing a piece of the Navy’s pending program of record.