An Australian AI company has become the latest to be granted the right to licence-free trades with the US and UK under the AUKUS deal, highlighting the steady pace at which the submarine pact’s second pillar is advancing.
Maritime AI and autonomy company Greenroom Robotics announced in a media release on Thursday it had been granted AUKUS authorised user status by the Australian government, enabling it to “fast-track delivery of advanced technologies” to the other two AUKUS countries.
“Our licence-free approval means US and UK customers can deploy Greenroom’s proven maritime autonomy stack with the speed, flexibility, and assurance needed to meet today’s strategic challenges,” chief operations officer Harry Hubbert said in the statement.
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He also said Greenroom Robotics, which specialises in technology meant to turn ships into autonomous and AI-enabled vessels, was “one of the very first Australian companies” to be granted the status, though that appears to be a stretch.
Public information from Australia and the UK indicates Australia has been efficient in approving new companies under the AUKUS legislation, and the process appears to be picking up speed. In February, Defence Minister Richard Marles said over 210 companies across Australia had been welcomed into the “export licence-free environment” since it was established by the three AUKUS nations in September 2024.
By May, that figure appeared to have risen to 344. That’s according to UK Defence Procurement Minister Maria Eagle, who told the UK Parliament that it was three times as many as her country has, in what’s known as the AUKUS authorised user community.
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“The reason that their membership numbers are higher than the UK is a result of Australia migrating their members from the Australia Approved Community [AC], which is under the Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty [DTCT] 2012,” Eagle said on May 14. “The Australian DTCT was more widely used by Australia than the UK and therefore Australia had more AC members to migrate than the UK.”
A directory of members of the DTCT community, updated by the Department of Defence on July 10, listed 107 companies and Australian government agencies.
The ability to export military technologies licence-free is one of the major components of the AUKUS pact’s second pillar.
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While AUKUS pillar one relates to the transfer of nuclear-driven submarines to Australia, pillar two enables information and technology sharing between the US, Australia and the UK, including by tearing down trade barriers.
Pillar two is primarily aimed at advancing eight research areas: undersea capabilities, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, advanced cyber capabilities, hypersonic capabilities, electronic warfare, innovation and information sharing.
In the UK, 269 entities had applied to join the AUKUS authorised user community as of May 14, and 98 of those had already been approved, according to Eagle’s evidence to the UK Parliament.
Eagle said the UK did not have access to information on how many US companies were members of the US authorised user community, but estimated the numbers could be “in the thousands”.
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