In another sign of the growing cooperation by leading shipbuilders, New York-listed HII and South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on Oct. 26 at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2025 forum to advance the objectives of the shipbuilding dialogue between the United States and Republic of Korea.
The signing event was attended by Joo Won-ho, president of the Naval & Special Ship Business Unit at HHI, and Eric Chewning, HII’s executive vice president of maritime systems and corporate strategy.
“This marks the beginning of deeper collaboration between not only our companies, but each of our countries, that will support enduring changes to military and commercial shipbuilding in America,” Chewning said. “We look forward to working collaboratively with HHI, the U.S. and South Korean governments, and with our customers to transform the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base and enable accelerated throughput in our shipyards.”
The MOA builds on previous collaboration between the two companies and expands strategic engagement around four key priorities.
Under the new agreement, the Virginia-headquartered military shipbuilder HII and South Korea’s HHI will expand the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base through the exploration of joint investments in distributed shipbuilding and flexible ship construction.
The companies will also pursue strategic teaming opportunities for Navy auxiliary shipbuilding programs leveraging the combined expertise of both companies.
They will also collaborate on engineering, research and development and technology implementation best practices in areas such as AI/ML, robotics and automation.
Both companies will also work to strengthen U.S. Navy Indo-Pacific in-theater ship lifecycle support.
Earlier this month, the two companies agreed to jointly pursue the U.S. Navy’s next-generation logistics ship (NGLS) design contract.
