Huntington Ingalls Tries Out AI to Fight Schedule Delays

Huntington Ingalls Industries' shipbuilding programs for the U.S. Navy face significant delays, particularly for the Ford-class aircraft carrier program, which is running years behind. To speed up work, HII is working with publicly-listed enterprise AI company C3 AI to put advanced algorithms behind the wheel for its yards' work scheduling and planning.

HII and C3 tried out a six-month trial production deployment program at Ingalls Shipbuilding, the yard that builds all U.S. Navy amphibs and most Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. During the trial, C3's agentic enterprise AI systems adjusted and optimized work schedules for Ingalls. The platform showed significant improvements in schedule performance, HII said - significant enough that the shipbuilder now wants to scale it up across all of its yards.

HII also runs Newport News Shipbuilding, the only builder of nuclear-powered carriers in the world and one of two builders of the U.S. Navy's Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines. Both Ingalls and NNS will now begin using C3 AI for planning and scheduling for their programs.

"This collaboration underscores our growing role as a strategic provider to the U.S. government and defense sector,” said Thomas M. Siebel, Chairman and CEO, C3 AI. “By deploying Enterprise AI across planning, operations, and the supply chain, we are powering a modern, intelligent infrastructure to ensure America’s edge in naval readiness.”

The handful of shipyards that build surface combatants and subs for the U.S. Navy are under scrutiny, and Acting CNO Adm. James Kilby reports that all of the service's newbuild programs are now behind schedule. "We are behind in every ship class [by] different rates, but at least years," Kilby said.

All shipbuilding contracts are under review, Navy Secretary John Phelan said earlier this year. Two big contracts - the next follow-on order for the Constellation-class frigate and the much-discussed block buy for two future Ford-class carriers - are not funded in the Navy's proposed FY2026 budget.