The Pentagon is looking for help to turn a vision of future fleets of hundreds of low-cost highly autonomous drone boats able operate collaboratively to intercept “noncooperative” ships into a reality.

What is known as the Production-Ready, Inexpensive, Maritime Expeditionary (PRIME) Small Unmanned Surface Vehicle (sUSV) project might also a stepping stone to the acquisition of networked swarms of armed uncrewed watercraft or ones with electronic warfare suites. This might even include explosive-packed kamikaze types designed to ram into their targets and detonate. This is a capability pioneered by Iran, who subsequently transferred it to Houthi militants in Yemen, and that has now really come into its own in the course of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) recently put out a call for proposals for the PRIME project. First established on an experimental basis in 2015, DIU is charged with “accelerating the adoption of commercial and dual-use technology to solve operational challenges at speed and scale” from its headquarters in Silicon Valley in California and satellite offices in Austin, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; and at Pentagon itself.