Defence chiefs have drawn up multimillion-pound plans for the technology needed to protect the UK’s undersea cables and pipelines.
The Atlantic Bastion program, announced as part of the Strategic Defense Review, will combine autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence with warships and aircraft to identify threats to underwater structures and protect them, British media write, according to the Telegraph.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was “in direct response to a resurgence in Russian submarine and underwater activity”, including the spy ship Yantar, which was tracked around UK waters last month.
The project has attracted a combined investment of £14 million (around €16 million) from the Ministry of Defence and industry this year, with the hope that the technology could be deployed next year.
A total of 26 firms from the United Kingdom and Europe have submitted proposals for the project.
Last week, Defence Secretary John Healey visited Portsmouth Naval Base to review some of the early technologies that could be used as part of Atlantic Bastion.
“People should be in no doubt about the new threats facing the UK and our allies under the sea, where adversaries are targeting the infrastructure that is so critical to our way of life,” Healey said.
“This new era of threat requires a new era of defense, and we must move quickly at a wartime pace to maintain the battlefield advantage.”
Recall that on Thursday, the United Kingdom and Norway signed a defense agreement that allows their navies to operate a combined fleet of warships.
The pact aims to protect critical undersea cables. /Telegraph/