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The American company Anduril is expanding its production of autonomous underwater vehicles and plans to launch a separate production line for the Dive-XL, an extra-large unmanned vehicle, by the end of 2026. Currently, the company’s facility in Quonset Point, Rhode Island, already operates a production line for the Dive-LD, which belongs to the category of autonomous underwater vehicles that are already quite large. The plan is to bring this line up to full production capacity by the end of 2027.
The plant, which covers an area of approximately 14,000 square meters, only began operations at the end of 2025, so Anduril is simultaneously ramping up production of the existing model and preparing to assemble a significantly larger unmanned vehicle. Initially, the plant’s projected capacity was estimated at up to 200 Dive-LD hulls per year – even though, prior to the facility’s opening, the company had been assembling these vehicles at its own site in Queens, Massachusetts. The Dive-LD itself is a 3-metric-ton vehicle capable of operating at depths of up to 6,000 meters and autonomously carrying out missions lasting up to 10 days; The first unit was delivered to the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Squadron (UUVRON-1).
Dive-XL belongs to the class of ultra-large autonomous underwater vehicles and has already been selected for testing as part of the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform (CAMP) project of the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which is responsible for accelerating the adoption of advanced technologies by the U.S. Armed Forces. The selection took place in March 2026 following a competitive selection process conducted by the DIU; under the terms of the agreement, Anduril is required to conduct a long-duration demonstration of the vehicle in conditions as close to combat as possible within four months of the agreement’s signing. The company had already set a record for the duration of a similar demonstration of the XL-AUV, which was one of the factors behind the decision.
The Dive-XL can remain underwater for weeks, has a range of up to 3,704 km, fits into a standard maritime shipping container, and is capable of carrying up to three payloads (or one large payload). The vehicle is now in serial production in Sydney, Australia – as part of the Ghost Shark program for the Royal Australian Navy, a contract valued at $1.7 billion.
To manufacture the Dive-XL in the U.S., Anduril is setting up a second specialized production line at the same facility in Quonset Point, which it expects to have ready by the end of this year. As a result, the company is expected to produce dozens of Dive-XLs and hundreds of Dive-LDs annually – a production capacity the company cites as evidence of its readiness for contracts involving high-volume deliveries.
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