SAN DIEGO - The U.S. Navy, alongside international military and research partners from Australia and the United Kingdom, recently initiated active testing for the AUKUS Pillar II Maritime Big Play Pacific (MBP-P) demonstration in the Southern California (SOCAL) operating area.
Sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, Critical Technologies (OUSW(R&E) CT) and hosted by Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific, U.S. Pacific Fleet as well as the U.S. Marine Corps, this experimentation event is expected to achieve milestones in integrating mature robotics and autonomous systems within AUKUS coalition maritime operations. Running from October 05 - 25, 2026, the event will showcase more than 40 government and industry technologies from across all three partner nations, including multi-domain autonomous, crewed, and uncrewed systems (UxS).
The MBP-P demonstration builds off three years of intensive trilateral collaboration, advancing common command and control solutions for generating overwhelming combat mass, as well as delivering secure 'stratosphere to seabed' communications that enable AUKUS to act in coordination across the entire maritime domain. The event will feature live-fire operational vignettes focused on increasing mission effect and delivering force multipliers during strike operations, contested resupply, and undersea warfare.
"This demonstration represents a significant step forward as partners to integrate and fight together in future conflicts," said Gerry Tighe, U.S. Lead for AUKUS Maritime Big Play. "This effort strives for seamless integration of autonomous systems with our conventional maritime fleet, and further as part of a greater combined partner force."
"We've brought together cutting-edge systems from across our shared industrial base, put those solutions into the hands of AUKUS Warfighters so they can train together, and removed the technical barriers for integrating those advanced capabilities into no-kidding operations," he said. "Maritime Big Play underscores the shared commitment of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to maintaining security, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region."
