Helsing offers SG-1 Fathom underwater gliders to increase NATO's maritime situational awareness

The UKʼs Treasury and Helsing announced on 8 July 2025 that the artificial intelligence company will produce SG-1 Fathom underwater gliders (photo of mock-up) in Plymouth at the countryʼs first ‘resilience factoryʼ. (Helsing)

Helsing is offering its SG-1 Fathom underwater glider to increase NATOʼs maritime situational awareness, Amelia Gould, director of the artificial intelligence (AI) companyʼs maritime domain, told international journalists including Janes at its Munich office on 9 July. The AI-enabled SG-1 is being offered as an asset for NATO's Digital Ocean Vision initiative, which aims to enhance the allianceʼs maritime situational awareness with assets ranging from satellites to autonomous systems under, on, and above the sea.

Gould spoke of the urgency of identifying underwater threats as it becomes more difficult to do. She said the SG-1 glider, which uses the Lura large acoustic model, offers a flexible AI-enabled surveillance network.

Gould added that Helsing is working with navies on detecting, classifying, locating, and tracking underwater threats, estimating that 5% of the related data is military. She said Lura can detect contacts that are 10 times quieter than other AI models and does so 40 times faster than a human operator, with a classification accuracy of 90%. The unmotorised SG-1ʼs silence increases Luraʼs performance and makes the glider difficult to detect, according to Gould. The system has a small supply chain and can be launched by a civilian or military ship and is also airdroppable, Gould said.

Hundreds of SG-1s can be deployed for each mission, creating a barrier that Gould said could pick up acoustics, and the glider surfaces to transmit the data it has collected, with multiple