Saronic brings Samsung Heavy Industries into its US drone-boat buildout

A $9.25 billion Texas autonomy firm and one of Korea's three biggest shipbuilders will co-develop autonomous vessels and robot-driven production lines for American shipyards.

Saronic Technologies and Samsung Heavy Industries announced a strategic partnership in Washington on Thursday covering autonomy-capable vessels for government and commercial buyers, AI-powered digital tools, and robotics-based automation across Saronic's US shipyards, per the joint release carried by Naval News.

The deal was unveiled at the launch of the Korea-US Shipbuilding Partnership Center, a new body sponsored by the US Commerce Department and Korea's trade ministry. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan joined Saronic CEO Dino Mavrookas and Samsung Heavy chief Choi Sung-an for the signing, The Korea Times wrote. Hanwha Ocean and HD Korea Shipbuilding sealed separate American agreements at the same ceremony, and Seoul has agreed to steer $150 billion of its $350 billion US investment package into shipbuilding cooperation, per the paper.

Samsung Heavy said the joint work spans research on autonomous navigation and AI digital solutions plus production infrastructure such as robotics-based process automation, Seoul Economic Daily reported.

The pairing lands one week after Saronic picked Brownsville, Texas, for Port Alpha, a $3 billion, 835-acre yard expected to open in 2028 with room for hulls over 1,200 feet and up to 10,000 direct jobs over a decade, according to gCaptain. Another $300 million is going into the company's Franklin, Louisiana facility. Saronic closed a $1.75 billion Series D in March at a $9.25 billion valuation, up from $4 billion, Inside Unmanned Systems noted.

The exchange is plain to read. Saronic holds capital and Navy demand but has never built ships at volume; Samsung Heavy brings decades of high-volume construction and vessel design. That know-how matters as Saronic scales up from its inventory of small USVs to the Marauder, one of seven designs in the Navy's MUSV prototype marketplace. Each design that passes at-sea testing collects $15 million plus eligibility for follow-on production, per USNI News. Samsung Heavy, in turn, gets an American partner inside a naval market its government is paying to enter.

Construction at Brownsville is due to start later this year, gCaptain said, with the yard set to open in 2028; the MUSV sea trials that could hand Saronic its first medium-hull production orders wrap in October.