Royal Navy Signs £90m Atlantic Net Deal With Ocean Infinity and AI Contract With Arondite for Commando Forces
Announced at the Atlantic Future Forum on 12 November: an Atlantic undersea threat-detection deal combining autonomous systems and sensors, plus a multi-million-pound AI deployment integrating sensors and autonomous platforms across UK Commando Force.
The United Kingdom announced two defense technology agreements on 12 November during the Atlantic Future Forum in Oslo. The Royal Navy confirmed a £90 million contract with Ocean Infinity for 'Atlantic Net', combining advanced sensors and autonomous systems to detect and monitor undersea threats in the North Atlantic. The deal accompanies a separate agreement for three mine-hunting motherships under the Defence Investment Plan, with the first delivery due in 2031.
The same day, the UK Ministry of Defense approved a multi-million-pound contract with British scale-up Arondite to deploy its AI software across UK Commando Force, integrating sensors, autonomous platforms and data feeds into a single operational system. Arondite also announced a £35 million expansion into Norway.
Both agreements illustrate the pattern now dominant in Western defense procurement: physical platforms are increasingly commodities, while value concentrates in software-defined sensing and autonomy. Notably, one of the two contracts went to a small specialist AI firm rather than a prime contractor, showing how niche integrators enter the defense stack through data-layer specialization. The value of the Arondite contract was not disclosed beyond 'multi-million pound', and all figures come from government press releases.