U.S. shipyards will begin deploying, in earnest, the ship design, automation, and production operations technologies that Korean shipbuilders have accumulated for more than half a century. Hanwha Ocean, HD Hyundai, and Samsung Heavy Industries on the 23rd (local time) unveiled 15 shipbuilding cooperation projects in the United States to coincide with the opening of the Korea-U.S. Shipbuilding Cooperation Center in Washington, D.C. As the scope of cooperation became concrete—from ship and naval vessel design to modernizing existing shipyards and building new yards—the outline of local business in the United States also came into sharper focus.
The United States made clear it will judge the results of cooperation by the number of ships actually built locally. Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Minister of Commerce, said, "It does no good if we only talk," adding, "Ultimately, we will evaluate this center by the simple figure of the 'number of ships built in the United States' that Korea and the United States produce together through cooperation."
By this standard, Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai have relatively specific paths that could lead to construction in the United States. Based on Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc., Hanwha Ocean can target not only U.S. commercial ships but also construction of auxiliary naval ships and naval vessel modules. Hanwha is also participating as a subcontractor in the conceptual design project for the U.S. Navy's next-generation logistics support ship.
HD Hyundai, which is seeking a local shipyard, is jointly building container ships with Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), a U.S. group specializing in offshore support vessels, and is pursuing cooperation on next-generation logistics support ships with Huntington Ingalls, the largest U.S. defense shipbuilder. In contrast, Samsung Heavy Industries, which has no U.S. shipyard of its own and is still at the design and cooperation stage for U.S. Navy projects, is in a phase of expanding its local business base by leveraging automation for new yards and technology for LNG (liquefied natural gas) bunkering ships and autonomous vessels.
◇ Hanwha speeds up strategic transport ship design… HD Hyundai to modernize U.S. shipyards
Hanwha Ocean is using this cooperation as a springboard to enter the U.S. naval vessel newbuild market. It will jointly design a global strategic transport ship with Leidos Gibbs & Cox that serves as a commercial logistics vessel in peacetime and carries troops and materiel in contingencies. After signing a comprehensive memorandum of understanding (MOU) in April, the companies signed a professional services contract on the day, moving to actual design work. The plan is to combine Hanwha Ocean's warship construction technology with Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc.'s production base to target orders from the United States and its allies.
In this cooperation, HD Hyundai focused on modernizing existing U.S. shipyards and converting production systems to digital. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, the intermediate holding company for shipbuilding, will diagnose the facilities and processes of Fraser Industries, which builds and repairs ships along the Great Lakes, and propose automation and modernization measures. With Siemens, it will jointly develop a digital yard model to be applied to U.S. shipyards. The method connects design, production, parts procurement, and quality-control data on a three-dimensional platform and verifies processes in a virtual shipyard in advance to reduce construction delays and rework. The company plans to expand and commercialize this digital yard model to shipyards in the United States and beyond.
HD Hyundai Samho broadened the scope of cooperation to port infrastructure by supplying four state-of-the-art port cranes to the operator of the Port of Tacoma. An HD Hyundai official said, "Ultimately, to build ships directly in the United States, we are continuing to look for local shipyards."
◇ Samsung Heavy's robotic process automation tech for America's next-generation shipyards
Samsung Heavy Industries chose a strategy of focusing less on immediately securing a local construction base and more on building production systems for new U.S. shipyards and designing LNG-specialized ships. At "Port Alpha," a next-generation shipyard that U.S. autonomous vessel company Saronic Technologies is building in Brownsville, Texas, with an investment of more than $3 billion (about 4.4 trillion won), Samsung Heavy Industries' automation and production operations technologies are expected to be applied. The companies will jointly research autonomous navigation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and build a robot-based production infrastructure together.
In the commercial ship sector, roles were divided with a local shipyard. Samsung Heavy Industries provided design and LNG technology, while Conrad Shipyard handled construction to jointly develop a 12,000-cubic-meter LNG bunkering vessel. The ship received basic design approval from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), completing design verification for local orders.
For Korea-U.S. "MASGA (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again)" cooperation to lead to actual ship construction, a skilled workforce and an equipment supply chain must be established together. Samsung Heavy Industries will set up a center with Vigor Marine Group to train welding and painting personnel and will introduce Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) training.
Hanwha Ocean also plans to build a workforce training system with local educational institutions centered on Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc. and expand the participation of U.S. manufacturing companies in the shipbuilding equipment supply chain. The role of Korean companies is widening beyond providing technology to encompassing design, production, and the overall buildup of workforce and supply chains.
◇ Moving from declarations to execution… institutional support is key
Industry officials see MASGA entering a full-fledged execution phase beyond a broad declaration of cooperation with this announcement. Many projects are still at the MOU or joint development stage, but the targets have been narrowed to specific shipyards, ships, and production technologies.
The key going forward is the institutional foundation that will connect Korean companies' technology and investment to actual orders. For U.S. naval vessels, construction at U.S. shipyards is the principle, and foreign companies must have separate security systems to participate in classified projects. The "SHIPS for America Act," which includes financial and tax support to back commercial ship orders and streamlined permitting, is still pending in the U.S. Congress.
An industry official said, "There are limits to what can be achieved with Korean companies' technology provision alone," adding, "The U.S. government's support for stable order volumes, investment incentives, and swift permitting—and how quickly U.S. shipyards applying Korean technology can deliver their first ship—will determine MASGA's success or failure."