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By Kirsty Needham
AVALON, Australia (Reuters) - Anduril president Christian Brose said the AI-powered defence start-up, whose founder left Facebook over his early support of Donald Trump, has good "vibes" about the Trump administration's shakeup of defence and willingness to do things differently.
Brose, who previously worked for Republican Senator John McCain, said Anduril was well positioned because the work it is doing on low-cost autonomous defence systems "seemingly align with the assumptions and proclivities the new administration is bringing".
Anduril said in December it would partner with OpenAI to deploy advanced artificial intelligence solutions for national security missions.
Brose has been critical of defence procurement, and said the Trump administration shared this frustration.
"There's a huge opportunity and seemingly a lot of willingness on the part of the new Trump administration to do things differently," he said in an interview at the Australian International Air Show on Wednesday.
"We have relationships with the current administration - its not secret that our founder has given money to Trump and is very supportive of Trump and has been for a very long time,” he said, referring to founder Palmer Luckey.
"At the level of vibes, it's good," he added.
The Pentagon last month directed U.S. military leaders to draw up a list of potential defence budget cuts totalling about $50 billion.
"Its not clear that the reported 8% reduction is actually a desire to reduce the defence budget or a desire to harvest money that can then be repurposed into new and different types of military capabilities," Brose said.
Anduril is building a mass manufacturing factory for its autonomous systems in Ohio, and Brose said the company plans to build more outside the United States, which could include Australia if there was a business case.
Anduril developed the Ghost Shark underwater autonomous machine with the Australian Defence Force, and Anduril Australia chief executive David Goodrich said the company hopes to make announcements soon on "at-scale production".
Anduril is working on a facility in New South Wales for production ahead of any contract, he said.
Under the AUKUS treaty, the United States and Britain will work to transfer nuclear-powered submarine technology to Australia, which will spend more than A$360 billion over several decades to build a new class of sub in Australia.
Brose said it was "both, not an either/or" when it came to defence investment in crewed submarines and autonomous machines.
"The benefit of autonomous systems like Ghost Shark is they deliver a lot faster, you can produce them in far larger quantities and far lower prices," he said.
(This story has been corrected to fix the surname of Anduril's president to Brose throughout the story)
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
