Navy Adds $11.27 Million to Integer Technologies' AI Undersea Acoustics Program

The U.S. Navy has awarded Integer Technologies an $11.27 million contract modification to keep building AI-driven acoustic modeling tools for undersea warfare. The Navy announced the award on November 5, 2026, and the money keeps a research effort running through October 2029.

The deal is an option exercise, not a new program. It sits under an existing Office of Naval Research contract supporting the Operationalizing Marine Acoustics for Strategic Awareness program. ONR, based in Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity, and the work will be performed in Durham, New Hampshire.

Funding arrives in increments. Roughly $7.58 million in fiscal 2026 research, development, test and evaluation funds was obligated at the time of award — about two-thirds of the option's total value up front, with the balance to follow across the program's life.

What does the technology actually do?

The program tackles a specific military problem: underwater acoustic environments are messy, and they change. Those conditions govern how naval platforms detect, communicate, navigate and operate. Shifts in ocean conditions and surrounding acoustic activity can degrade how sensors and autonomous systems interpret their surroundings.

Integer Technologies is developing tools that combine several technical strands:

• Physics-based models of underwater sound behavior
• Machine learning applied to acoustic datasets
• Advanced intelligence models
• Acoustic soundscape analysis

The goal is automation. The tools are designed to process acoustic data automatically and hand military operators usable intelligence, without the extensive manual interpretation that currently slows things down. That capability could support faster operational decisions and let platforms adapt their behavior as acoustic conditions shift around them.

The technology is intended for potential deployment aboard both crewed and autonomous maritime platforms, which matters for a Navy pushing hard into unmanned systems.

Why an option exercise matters

Integer Technologies, headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina, was identified as a small business in the announcement. For a company that size, an $11.27 million option exercise on an existing ONR agreement signals sustained government confidence — the Navy is choosing to extend rather than re-compete.

The program also aims to improve the effectiveness of undersea and seabed warfare by giving operators a more current picture of the surrounding soundscape. That framing lines up with the Navy's broader push to integrate AI, autonomous systems and advanced sensor processing into maritime operations.

For contractors watching this space, the structure tells you something. The research runs through October 2029, meaning follow-on work — and additional option exercises — could extend the pipeline well beyond this award.

The bottom line for practitioners: ONR is funding applied AI that turns raw acoustic data into decision support, and it's doing so with a small business incumbent it already trusts.