Royal Navy deal puts British startup Arondite's AI software across UK Commando Force

The Royal Navy has agreed a deal to deploy AI software from the British startup Arondite across UK Commando Force, the Ministry of Defence announced on November 12. The software, called Cobalt, is meant to pull the force's sensors, autonomous platforms and data feeds into what the ministry calls a unified fighting system. The ministry described the contract only as multi-million pound and gave no figure.

The Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Richard Knighton, announced the partnership aboard HMS Prince of Wales during the Atlantic Future Forum, which the ministry calls the UK's flagship international security conference. Cobalt, he said, would bring commandos' “sensors, autonomous platforms and data together so that they can make decisions faster than any adversary.”

What the software is for

The ministry calls Cobalt mission orchestration software. Under the deal it is to coordinate the commando force with other UK defense units and with partner forces across the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) coalition, and to let future hardware and AI capabilities be deployed quickly. The commando force and Arondite will also make the platform available to Norwegian units for joint testing on upcoming deployments. The ministry's release does not say which AI techniques the software uses or what part human operators play in its decisions.

The deal fits a wider push. On November 10, the Royal Navy and its JEF allies, 10 maritime nations in all, signed a Northern Navies Initiative in Oslo, under which the group says it will make its equipment interoperable by design so that future autonomous platforms can plug into each other's command and control systems. In the same release, the ministry said it is putting £100 million of new investment into turning the commando force into a warfighting formation focused on the High North.

An Oslo office and a UK-Norway AI statement

Alongside the contract, Arondite said it is opening its first international office, in Oslo, and will invest £35 million over five years to expand its work with the Norwegian Armed Forces, Norwegian industry and NATO allies. The company is on track to double its headcount to 150 by summer 2027, according to the ministry. Will Blyth, Arondite's co-founder and chief executive, said allies in Norway have some of the most complex missions in the world and “rightly demand technology that works from day one.”

The same day in Oslo, Kanishka Narayan, the UK's minister for AI, and Torgeir Micaelsen, Norway's minister of digitalization and public governance, signed a joint statement of intent on artificial intelligence. Among the areas they committed to explore is closer cooperation between the UK's Taskforce RAID and Norway's Defence Centre for Data and AI on jointly developing, testing and adopting AI-enabled defense capabilities. The list also covers compute infrastructure and AI hardware, sharing practice on AI security testing between UK AISI and AI Norway, and international AI governance.

The statement is not binding: it says it creates no rights or obligations under international or domestic law, and that cooperation will depend on each country's laws, policies and available resources. On the UK side, the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade is to coordinate the work. Narayan, quoted in the Arondite release, said defending Britain and its allies “in the age of AI means harnessing the very best of British technology.”