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Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), America’s largest naval shipbuilder, is reshaping the way it builds warships by spreading work across a broader network of yards and manufacturers in multiple states and increasingly overseas in a bid to accelerate delivery for the US Navy.
With demand for submarines, aircraft carriers and surface combatants continuing to climb, HII said it is investing heavily in a “distributed shipbuilding” model designed to grow capacity, reduce bottlenecks and strengthen the industrial base.
“HII is all in on our commitment to grow our throughput and turn out more ships at both yards more quickly for the Navy,” president and chief executive Chris Kastner said.
“We’ve already doubled our outsourced hours in 2025 and we are on track to quadruple them in a two-year period. Our hiring is up, our attrition is down and our experience base is growing,” Kastner added.
The company now counts 23 firms in its structural assembly network, providing outsourced modular construction of ship sections, a figure expected to rise further.
At Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, HII has gone so far as to acquire an additional manufacturing facility in Goose Creek, South Carolina. Now branded as Charleston Operations, the site will build completed submarine modules and structural aircraft carrier units, with ample space earmarked for future expansion. In parallel, HII has contracted with fabricators in Virginia and other states to take on specific assemblies for the next generation of submarines and carriers.
For Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi, the approach has been similar. Outfitted structural units for Arleigh Burke Class destroyers are now being built, inspected and certified at partner yards outside the Gulf Coast region before being shipped to Pascagoula for final integration.
According to HII, six partners in different states are already engaged on early work packages for DDG 135, DDG 137 and DDG 139, with further contracts under evaluation.
By moving some of the most labour-intensive work to areas with available skills and facilities, HII said it can ease pressure on its own yards, which face ongoing recruitment and retention challenges.
Beyond domestic partnerships, HII is also deepening international ties. The company has signed cooperative agreements with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries and the UK’s Babcock International, seeking to leverage shared expertise, trial new production methods and pursue opportunities in both defence and commercial shipbuilding markets.
While HII’s US yards, Newport News and Ingalls remain the centrepiece of its operations, these overseas links are designed to reinforce technological innovation and secure a more resilient supply chain.
The shift to distributed shipbuilding comes as the US Navy seeks to grow and modernise its fleet in response to intensifying strategic competition, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. Current plans envisage expanding the number of Virginia Class submarines, sustaining the Columbia Class ballistic missile submarine program, and replacing ageing destroyers with upgraded Arleigh Burkes and future surface combatants.
American industry, however, has faced mounting challenges keeping pace with these ambitions. Workforce shortages, pandemic disruptions and supply-chain fragility have all slowed delivery schedules in recent years. By outsourcing more work, HII aims not only to hit schedule targets but also to create new industrial hubs beyond its traditional bases in Virginia and Mississippi.
For allies such as Australia, which is embarking on its own massive naval recapitalisation effort through AUKUS, the experiment will be watched closely. Canberra faces similar questions about shipyard capacity, skilled labour pipelines and whether parts of its naval construction program might also benefit from a more distributed model.
Kastner has insisted the approach is about more than spreading workload – it is about securing the long-term resilience of the US shipbuilding industrial base.
