US Navy expands AI use to hunt Iranian mines in Strait of Hormuz

The U.S. Navy is expanding its use of artificial intelligence to detect Iranian naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most strategically important shipping routes, according to details of a recently awarded contract.

President Donald Trump has stated that the U.S. Navy is actively clearing Iranian mines from the strait, a key artery for global oil shipments. Any disruption to this route poses a growing risk to the global economy. However, mine-clearing operations—particularly the detection and removal of underwater explosives—could take months, even as a fragile ceasefire holds between the United States and Iran following their weeks-long conflict.

To accelerate these efforts, the Navy has awarded a contract worth up to $99.7 million to the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company Domino Data Lab. The contract is aimed at enhancing software that enables underwater drones to identify new types of mines much more rapidly.

“Mine-hunting used to be a job for ships,” said Thomas Robinson, Domino’s chief operating officer, in an interview with Reuters. “It’s becoming a job for AI. The Navy is paying for the platform that lets it train, govern, and field that AI at a speed required for contested waters that block global trade and imperil sailors.”

The contract expands Domino’s role as the AI backbone of the Navy’s Project AMMO—Accelerated Machine Learning for Maritime Operations. This program is designed to improve the speed, accuracy, and autonomy of underwater mine detection, reducing reliance on human operators.

Domino’s platform integrates data from multiple sensor systems, including side-scan sonar and visual imaging technologies. It also allows the Navy to continuously monitor the performance of different AI detection models in real-world conditions, identify shortcomings, and deploy updates to enhance their effectiveness.

A key advantage of the system is its speed. Previously, updating the AI models used by unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to recognise new or unfamiliar mines could take up to six months. Domino says its technology reduces that process to just a matter of days.

Robinson highlighted the system’s operational flexibility in the context of shifting geopolitical demands. “If there were UUVs in the Baltic Sea trained on Russian mines, and then they needed to be deployed to the Strait of Hormuz to detect Iranian mines, with Domino’s technology, the Navy could be ready in a week rather than a year.”

By Tamilla Hasanova