The review examines the uncrewed surface vessel (USV) sector and reports a new, rapidly accelerating USV arms race fueled by the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and the US Department of War investment.
Jack Dougherty, Janus CEO, said the widespread deployment of drones at sea in both theatres of war is supercharging military autonomous programs, with the US Navy significantly stepping up the speed of its procurement process.
The report finds China is actively recalibrating its approach to autonomous naval systems, shifting toward larger, more capable unmanned surface vessels designed for extended endurance, increased payload capacity, and greater operational reach. This is beyond anything the United States currently has deployed.
The report further finds that NATO is steadily expanding its operational expertise with unmanned systems, deploying USVs as part of its Baltic task force while advancing real-world integration through initiatives such as Task Force X and multinational exercises like REPMUS. These efforts are focused on refining command and control, improving operations between allied forces, and validating concepts for maritime surveillance, mine countermeasures, and distributed operations. Singapore, meanwhile, has moved beyond experimentation, establishing routine autonomous patrols of its territorial waters.
As well as addressing wider industry trends, the 2026 Janus Review examines the primary challenges facing the sector and showcases new applications and technologies.
Jeff Miller (USN ret.), Janus’s head of international Business Development and this year’s Janus Review Editor, said: “The Ukraine War has been the catalyst for change and has effectively rewritten the USV rulebook, by proving that a small, low-cost USV can sink warships worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Black Sea has become the world’s most intensive real-world proving ground for autonomous maritime systems, and its lessons are driving procurement decisions from Washington to Paris to Oslo. Cheap, attainable armed USVs are not a future capability. They are a current one.”
In May last year, a Magura V7 USV armed with AIM -9 Sidewinder missiles downed two Russian Su-30 jet fighters near Novorossiysk, making it the first time a jet aircraft was ever destroyed by a naval drone.
Mr. Miller said the US Navy’s unmanned surface vessel program has moved from years of experimentation and congressional skepticism into” what feels unmistakably like a production era.”
“The US is shifting towards evaluating multiple production-ready USVs from the industry and selecting platforms that can carry modular payloads and be fielded quickly,” he said.
In December last year, the US Navy awarded defense tech startup Saronic a $392 million deal to kickstart its Corsair vessel from prototype to production in under 12 months, an announcement accompanied by the news of a $300 million shipyard expansion in Louisiana. Janus highlights that as “the stated Navy template for future success.”
Defense giants are also getting involved. Lockheed Martin has invested $50 million in maritime defense company Saildrone to integrate combat weapons onto its Surveyor platform.
However, the Janus Review predicts there will be industry consolidation in the US as naval procurement moves ahead. Mr. Dougherty said: “We have 100 Henry Fords in the US building uncrewed vessels in a market that will ultimately support less 10–15 vessel production programs.”
“The next 24 months will answer the question of which companies have built the combination of reliable hardware, proven autonomy software, and production infrastructure that the Navy needs. The companies that can put vessels in the water and keep them running for 30 days without touching them will be very busy. Those who cannot clear that bar will need a different business plan.”
Looking at the commercial USV market, Mr. Dougherty said the report finds great strides have been made in sectors such as offshore energy. He said: “Multi-year enterprise contracts, service-oriented business models, and a growing fleet of purpose-built commercial vessels displacing crewed operations at scale are no longer aspirational. They are the current state of business. Supervised autonomy is delivering real operational value today. Full autonomy in complex, dynamic environments is a near-term development horizon, not a current-day commercial reality.”
“The constraint is not hardware. It is the combination of regulatory frameworks still catching up with the technology and the interpretive judgment required for navigational decision-making in genuinely difficult scenarios.”
“The commercial USV sector is no longer asking whether this technology will work. The question has shifted to how fast the remaining constraints will fall away; whether they be regulatory, technical, or organizational.”
The Janus Review points to major challenges to fleet scaling, including:
- America’s shipbuilding workforce crisis and the industry’s struggle to attract the workers it needs.
- Supply chain crunch. Components needed to build USVs are subject to the same constraints that have disrupted electronics manufacturing globally since 2020
- The need for the adoption of physical standardization. Every company has its own mounting dimensions; every vendor has its own power interface; every platform has its own data protocol. The report says this is one of the primary reasons the industry struggles to scale.
- The physics of unmanned systems creates a new category of vulnerability that crewed vessels do not share. The industry needs to design to that reality, not around it.
