A US artificial intelligence start-up has raised its first external funding as it seeks to apply AI technology to help the US Navy identify submarine acoustic data.
Spear AI, based in Washington, DC, is looking to deploy AI technology to help submarine operators identify passive acoustic data from underwater listening devices to distinguish natural sounds from man-made vessels that could present a threat.
The company aims to label and organise various types of acoustic data in a manner similar to AI labelling firms such as Scale AI that have previously dealt with data such as text and images.
Acoustic data
Spear AI sells sensors that can be attached to buoys or vessels and a software tool designed to help label and sort acoustic data and prepare it for use by AI systems.
The US Navy earlier this month awarded the company a $6 million (£4.5m) contract for the data-labelling tool.
Spear AI has been self-funding since it was founded in 2021 and has about 40 staff.
Michael Hunter, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, told Reuters the firm raised $2.3m from AI-oriented venture-capital firm Cortical Ventures and private equity firm Scare the Bear.
He said the funding would be used to double the company’s headcount to support its government contracts and commercial business ventures into areas such as monitoring underwater pipelines and cables.
He said Spear AI also aims to offer consulting services, similar to defence tech firm Palantir.
Hunter, a former US Navy SEAL analyst, co-founded the company with John McGunnigle, a former US Navy submarine commander.
The AI acoustic technology could help in safeguarding underwater pipelines and data cables, a number of which have been targeted in apparent sabotage operations since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Subsea cable security
Earlier this month Representative John Moolenaar, chair of a House panel on China, and Representatives Carlos Gimenez and Keith Self, who chair subcommittees, raised concerns with US tech companies Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft about Chinese-affiliated companies carrying out maintenance on cables with which the US companies have financial links.
In a letter, the Republican representatives said China-affiliated companies such as SBSS, Huawei Marine, China Telecom and China Unicom “have continued to provide maintenance or servicing to cable systems in which your companies maintain direct or indirect operational involvement or ownership”.
The letter said the committees run by the representatives are “examining the extent to which foreign adversarial actors are positioning themselves, both overtly and covertly, to compromise subsea cable systems at key points of vulnerability”.