When fuel stops, what keeps working?

For a long time, maritime capability has been discussed in fairly simple specifications:

-How fast can a platform go?

-How far can it travel?

-How much can it carry?

Those questions still matter. But reading New Zealand’s updated Maritime Security Strategy, it feels like the bigger question is starting to shift. The issue is not just what a platform can do on paper. It is whether the wider system can still understand, deter and respond in a maritime environment that is getting more complex, more contested, and more important to New Zealand’s future. The Ministry of Transport’s strategy now frames maritime security around four pillars: understand, engage, prevent and respond.

That is one reason WHAI matters to us.

When we developed WHAI, we were not trying to build “just another electric USV.” We were thinking about a more practical problem.

Sustainment.

If fuel supply chains are disrupted, stretched, targeted, or simply unavailable in the place you need them most, what capability can remain on operation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLAoXPVXF5o

That question becomes even more relevant when you read the government’s recent maritime security material alongside its wider focus on maritime domain awareness, strategic coordination, and critical underwater infrastructure. The March 2026 update to the Maritime Security Strategy explicitly added Critical Underwater Infrastructure, and the Ministry has also published a 2025 maritime security strategic assessment and a 2025 critical underwater infrastructure assessment as part of the same body of work.

What stands out in the strategy is that New Zealand is not treating maritime security as a narrow naval issue. It is being treated as a broader national resilience issue. The Ministry says the Strategy is intended to secure New Zealand’s marine economic, cultural and environmental interests for future generations The accompanying material emphasises both the scale of New Zealand’s maritime domain and the economy’s dependence on it.

That is exactly where we think autonomous systems need to be discussed more seriously.

At its simplest, WHAI is an attempt to reduce one of the oldest vulnerabilities in maritime operations: dependence on fuel. Not eliminate it across the whole system, but reduce the operational penalty that comes with needing constant resupply.

The interesting part is not just that WHAI is electric. Plenty of people can say that. The more important point is that WHAI is designed as an energy-aware platform. It harvests solar energy, stores that energy onboard, and uses it to support propulsion and mission systems. At higher speeds, the vessel will naturally draw down stored energy to move quickly. But most surveillance, security and observation tasks are not done at sprint speed. They are done slowly, quietly and for extended periods.

That is where the operating concept changes. At loiter speeds, when propulsion demand is much lower, solar input can materially offset what the platform is using. In suitable conditions, that means WHAI can remain on task for extremely long periods because the platform is not just consuming energy, it is recovering it as it operates. This capability sits alongside the Strategy’s emphasis on understanding the maritime domain and preventing threats early. Whai, as a platform that can persist quietly and for longer gives decision-makers more time, more visibility and more options. The Strategy itself describes the “Understand” pillar as critically dependent on detecting and monitoring relevant maritime activity, and says the National Maritime Coordination Centre leads all-of-government efforts to collate, fuse and analyse information to generate a shared understanding of the maritime domain

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That matters because persistence is not a nice-to-have in maritime security. It is often the difference between seeing a problem early and reacting to it late.

The same logic applies to MODUS.

If WHAI is the platform, MODUS is the field infrastructure that makes autonomous capability usable at scale. New Zealand’s maritime security strategy consistently come back to the need for multi-agency coordination, partnership, and effective response. The Strategy says its approach is underpinned by a comprehensive multi-agency approach and kaitiakitanga, while the Guide to New Zealand’s Maritime Security Arrangements was published to support the National Security Strategy’s “Working Together” strand and the idea that national security is an all-of-nation activity.

This is one of the clearest strategic links for us.

MODUS is not just a box to store equipment in. It is a deployable support layer that can generate, store and distribute energy, house mission systems, support operators, and sustain autonomous systems closer to where they are needed. In other words, it helps turn a single uncrewed vessel into a practical, deployable, repeatable capability.

The more we read the government’s maritime security material, the less this feels like a story about replacing crewed platforms, and the more it feels like a story about filling current and future gaps. New Zealand’s maritime area is vast, the requirement to monitor it is significant, and the need to combine awareness, prevention and response is now explicit in published strategy. That creates a very real role for systems that are lower-signature, lower-burden and able to stay on task without the same logistical footprint as conventional assets.

There is another reason this is timely. The Ministry has also published a specific guide on the use of small autonomous surface vessels in New Zealand’s maritime area, making clear that uncrewed surface vessel operations are a regulated activity in New Zealand’s territorial sea and EEZ.

That shows the conversation has shifted.

Autonomous surface systems are no longer hypothetical in policy terms. They are something that our government is actively framing and preparing for.

For us, that is where thought leadership should sit. Not in claiming that autonomy is the answer to everything, but in recognising where it genuinely aligns with the country’s strategic direction.

If New Zealand is saying it needs to better understand the maritime domain, work more effectively across agencies and partners, prevent threats earlier, strengthen resilience, and pay closer attention to critical underwater infrastructure, then persistent, energy-aware autonomous systems have a place in that conversation. Not as a future concept. As part of the practical toolkit.

That is the real point behind WHAI and MODUS.

It is not simply that they are modern. It is that they are being designed for the sort of maritime security environment New Zealand is now openly describing in its own strategy documents.

And in that environment, the old question of “how much fuel can you carry?” starts to feel less important than a better one:

"What capability can keep working when the assumptions behind everything else begin to fail?"