STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss.——U.S. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (Naval Oceanography) hosted the first Subsea and Seabed Warfare (SSW) Data Workshop of the trilateral partnership─AUKUS─between Australia, the United Kingdom and United States, May 17-18, 2023.
 
AUKUS aims at stimulating in-depth sharing of information and technology, and closer synchronization of defense-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains; with the current primary initiative to deliver armed nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy.

Organized by the Navy’s Submarine Force Atlantic (COMSUBLANT), SSW allowed key technical leadership between the AUKUS trilateral to meet in-person and delve into how certain capabilities─in systems and processes─can be fully aligned.
 
“The obstacles preventing AUKUS from moving forward the technical capabilities supporting interoperability to achieving full resource interchange are astounding but not insurmountable,” said Jennifer Blue, Chief Data Officer at Naval Oceanography. “This workshop identified many of those problems, from very lofty levels such as Department of Navy (DON) Policy to very low levels such as product format.”
 
Naval Oceanography collects billions of data impressions daily and is home to the Navy’s Department of Defense (DOD) Supercomputing Resource Center (DSRC), housing six high-performance computing (HPC) systems; giving way to Naval Oceanography as a leading DOD-authority in all-things data. 
 
“The result of this workshop was the beginnings of an AUKUS SSW Data Action Plan, framed around real world exercise events, that will extend the boundaries of each nations reach and capability…ultimately enhancing our Navy’s readiness,” said Blue. 
 
The AUKUS SSW consisted of 31 attending-participants, representing: the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation (1); United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (2); Naval Oceanography (4); COMSUBLANT (1); Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research and Engineering (1); Naval Oceanographic Office (9); National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (2); Naval Information Warfare Center (1); Naval Special Warfare Group (3); Naval Undersea Warfare Center (2); Naval Surface Warfare Panama City Division (1); Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (1); United States Marine Corps (1); Undersea Warfighting Development Center (2); and Naval Special Warfare Command (1).
 
Naval Oceanography has approximately 2,500 globally distributed military and civilian personnel, who collect, process and exploit environmental information to assist Fleet and Joint Commanders in all warfare areas to guarantee the U.S. Navy’s freedom of action in the physical battlespace from the depths of the ocean to the stars.