Saildrone and Palantir form partnership to leverage AI for maritime intelligence applications

Contractors Saildrone and Palantir Technologies today announced the formation of a new strategic partnership intended to leverage artificial intelligence tools from the latter company for maritime domain awareness applications on the former’s autonomous platforms.

According to a Saildrone announcement, the partnership will “revolutionize maritime intelligence capabilities” by streamlining manufacturing and improving fleet capabilities.

Saildrone makes multiple long-endurance unmanned surface vessels used by the Navy and other U.S. and international agencies largely for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The vessels use “sophisticated and proprietary edge-computing AI/ML algorithms” to detect and track threats including adversary submarines, illegal fishing and drug trafficking, the notice states.

“As demand for Saildrone services surges, the company will integrate Palantir’s sophisticated AI cloud infrastructure to enable rapid scaling across its entire operational spectrum -- from transforming its manufacturing, supply chain, and fleet operations with Warp Speed to enabling AI-powered tasking of autonomous assets in the field,” the announcement states.