The Australian government has announced an additional investment of AUD$4.6 billion (USD 3.2 billion) in the infrastructure needed to build future multi-purpose nuclear submarines as part of the AUKUS international partnership. According to Naval Today, thus the total investment in the Osborne shipbuilding cluster reached 8.5 billion Australian dollars (5.91 billion US dollars).
"The additional funding will support the further development of the nuclear submarine shipyard in Osborne, South Australia, which will become a central element of the Australian nuclear submarine construction system," the government said in a statement.
Construction of a shipyard for the production of submarines in Osborne (Australia)
Australian Naval Infrastructure
These funds will be used to finance the ongoing construction of the facility, workforce development, and industrial capacity building initiatives at Osborne in preparation for building and maintaining its future nuclear submarine fleet.
According to the government, the state-owned Australian Naval Infrastructure (ANI) company has already signed contracts with Australian companies worth about 1.9 billion Australian dollars (1.32 billion USD), supporting local businesses and strengthening domestic supply chains.
A larger multi-purpose nuclear submarine production program is expected to create almost 10,000 jobs in South Australia alone.
More than 1,000 people have already been involved in the construction of the new shipyard and the implementation of related labor supply projects.
The Australian government also stated that the construction of the Vocational Training Academy campus is on schedule and the facility will become operational in the first quarter of 2028. Once fully operational, the academy will be able to accommodate up to 1,000 students at a time, providing practical and theoretical training to future nuclear submarine specialists in Australia, as well as in other areas of naval shipbuilding.
Life-size mockups and prototypes will be placed at the facility to simulate the working environment of a submarine shipyard. The training will be conducted with the support of BAE Systems and ASC Pty.
"The work currently underway at Osborne demonstrates that the AUKUS project is moving in the right direction. We are already creating opportunities for the Australian industry and its employees for decades to come," said Richard Marles, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of Australia.
In turn, the Prime Minister of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas, said that the shipyard for the production of submarines in Osborne will be ten times larger than the existing shipyard here. "This project will dwarf the construction of the South Road motorway and the new women's and children's hospital combined," he said.
Earlier it was reported that the new Osborne site will consist of three main areas, including production, equipment and final assembly, launching and testing areas. It is assumed that 126 thousand tons of structural steel will be used for the construction of the facility. The length of the workshop in the production area will be 420 meters.
Recall that in September 2021, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced the creation of a new security partnership – AUKUS. As part of the agreement, Canberra, in particular, decided to build at least eight multipurpose nuclear submarines using technologies transferred by Washington and London, as well as to re-equip its armed forces with American cruise missiles. The creation of this alliance resulted in the termination of agreements with France for the supply of Attack-class diesel-electric submarines.
In the fall of 2025, the Australian authorities decided to allocate $ 8 billion to modernize and expand the shipbuilding complex in Henderson (Western Australia), where it is also planned to launch production of multi-purpose submarines.
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