Gecko Robotics expands U.S. Navy work around Columbia Class production

Gecko Robotics, the company pioneering the use of AI and robotics to change how organizations build, operate and maintain their most critical infrastructure, announced an expansion of its work with the U.S. Navy’s surface fleet and the continued growth of its partnership with the Columbia-class submarine program. The Navy has increased the use of Gecko on surface ships by 400% in 2024 and has expanded its scope to include aircraft carriers, with the first vessel scheduled for this fall.

The expansion with the $132 billion Columbia-class program represents a continuation of Gecko’s work on the nuclear-powered submarines that was announced last fall, building on the maintenance support for Virginia-class submarines.

“We’re proud to grow our partnership with the Navy around keeping ships in the fight and increasing the pace of production on the Columbia,” says Jake Loosararian, co-founder and CEO of Gecko Robotics. “Making sure the brave men and women of the U.S. Navy have the tools they need to perform their vital missions safely and effectively is the perfect example of what our team wakes up every morning focused on.”

According to the Navy data, Gecko is significantly reducing the lead time and work hours associated with maintenance cycles while increasing the availability of data and finding defects missing through traditional methods. For example, for one Navy asset, traditional methods captured less than 100 data points on key vital defense structures while Gecko’s platform captured more than 4.2 million.

Gecko will support the manufacturing and construction process of the Columbia-class nuclear submarines by using advanced robotics to collect an unprecedented level of structural data. The company will be able to help identify and predict problem areas in the build process that could create substantial delays. Gecko will also help the Navy build a digital baseline on critical parts of the program to help predict how the maritime environment will impact the submarine and when in-service maintenance will be required.

Gecko has been deployed across the U.S. Navy surface fleet since 2023 to help decrease maintenance delays and enable better planning. The company will begin work on its first aircraft carrier this fall and utilize their fleet of robots and fixed sensors to gather incredibly granular data on the health of the Navy’s vessels. That data is then fed into Gecko’s AI-powered operations platform, Cantilever, to help substantially reduce growth work, maintenance timelines and help the ships get back to sea faster.

The new deals cement Gecko’s role in building and maintaining critical defense assets that support both national and global security. It also makes the U.S. Navy a pioneer in using the very latest technology to reduce delays and unexpected maintenance for its fleet - a challenge faced by countries around the world.