Milrem Robotics and Chugach to explore U.S. production of THeMIS ground robots

Estonian ground-robot maker [Milrem Robotics](/companies/milrem-robotics) said in a release on Oct 14, 2026 that it signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Chugach Alaska Corporation at the AUSA 2026 annual meeting to explore building, assembling and sustaining its unmanned ground vehicles in the United States. Nothing in the release commits either side to a factory, a volume or a contract. What it does set out is a route by which a European UGV could be sold as an American-made product, including to allies through Foreign Military Sales.

The question the deal raises is simple: why would a company whose THeMIS vehicle is already bought by 21 countries need a U.S. partner at all? The answer sits in how the Pentagon buys and how allies prefer to pay.

What the memorandum actually covers

Under the agreement, Chugach could become Milrem's preferred U.S. industrial partner for production, assembly, integration, sustainment and lifecycle support, the companies said. The scope is Milrem's current and future UGV and autonomous-systems portfolio, aimed at potential requirements from the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies, plus the commercial dual-use market. The partners also expect to configure Milrem platforms to U.S. requirements and to train operators and maintainers.

"Our objective is not simply to sell systems into the United States, but to establish the capability to produce, integrate and sustain them there," Milrem chief sales officer Stefan Behre said in the release. Chugach CEO Jonathan Dalrymple said Milrem systems are in use or part of robotics programmes in 21 countries.

No investment amount, site, headcount, unit target or start date was disclosed, and the release frames the arrangement as exploratory. That leaves the obvious follow-up: who is Chugach, and what does it bring that a defence prime would not?

Chugach is a services contractor, not a vehicle builder

Chugach describes itself as an Alaska Native corporation with about 5,000 employees at 110 locations across 28 U.S. states and 10 countries, and more than 3,000 shareholders. Its stated defence work spans shipbuilding, aviation, facilities, logistics, information warfare and technical services. It does not list ground-vehicle production among them.

That is the point of the pairing. Milrem keeps the design and the autonomy stack, while Chugach supplies the U.S. footprint and the sustainment workforce that federal buyers expect. The release says the two will jointly pursue international customers who could buy U.S.-built Milrem systems through FMS, the government-to-government channel run by the U.S. Department of Defense.

THeMIS and the template already running in Asia

Milrem's site says THeMIS is a modular tracked platform with hybrid propulsion that can be configured for transport, casualty evacuation, ordnance disposal, strike or intelligence missions, and that it has been deployed in Mali and Ukraine. The company lists nine NATO members among its users: Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, which is 43% of the 21 user countries it cites. Its autonomy kit, MIFIK, adds autonomous navigation to manned and unmanned vehicles.

The U.S. plan copies a model Milrem set up with Korea's Hanwha on Oct 7, 2026. In that release, Hanwha bought two THeMIS units for R&D in South Korea and Australia and gained a framework to market, build locally and sustain THeMIS in Australia and New Zealand, with Milrem supplying technology transfer. Hanwha's own Arion-SMET won Korea's multi-purpose UGV programme in July 2026, according to the same release, so the partner is also a rival.

Where the money in military autonomy actually goes

MEKAWIRE's [defence robots explainer](/news/defense-robots-2026-explained-saronic-shield-ai-billion-dollar-rounds-humanoids-still-on-army-prize-money-korea-defence-ax-hub-20261018) shows how lopsided funding is. Of the three U.S. defence-autonomy rounds since January in our database, totalling $3.35bn, ground autonomy (Overland AI's $100m) accounts for 3.0%. Sea and air drew the rest.