Autonomous Maritime Logistics for Contested Environments with Bulwark Dynamics' Nhat Lieu

Nhat Lieu is the CEO and co-founder of Bulwark Dynamics, a defense technology company building autonomous landing craft for contested maritime logistics.

Can you tell me about your background and what led you to found Bulwark Dynamics?

My name is Nhat Lieu. I am 21 years old and was born and raised in Japan. My parents immigrated from Vietnam during the war. I began building companies at a young age, and Bulwark Dynamics is my third startup. My first startup was a blockchain based crowdfunding platform. My second was a hospital booking and coordination platform for travelers seeking medical care outside their home countries. Through those ventures, I was focused on issues related to access, inequality, and economic opportunity.

In January 2025, I decided to shut down and sell that company. While the business was growing, I realized I could not commit the next decade of my life to solving traveler health logistics. The scale of the problem did not match the level of impact I wanted to pursue. Over the past several years, global conflicts and instability made it increasingly clear to me that economic and social progress depend on underlying security. Without credible defense capability, peace and prosperity cannot be sustained. That conviction led me to pivot toward defense technology, and in May 2025, I co-founded Bulwark Dynamics with Yuta Shiina.

Those are very diverse industries. How did you land on autonomous maritime defense?

I had long been interested in defense, though I did not initially have direct experience in the field. In early 2025, my co-founder Yuta and I conducted structured research and spoke with military officers, professors, and industry experts to understand operational realities in the Indo Pacific.

As we examined emerging doctrine and current force posture, it became clear that maritime logistics was a structural constraint in any distributed conflict scenario. Much of the innovation in defense technology focused on aerial drones and strike systems. However, sustainment in dispersed island operations is often more decisive than strike capability.

Within maritime autonomy, many companies concentrated on reconnaissance, ISR, or offensive platforms. We identified a significant gap in contested logistics, specifically the need for smaller, autonomous landing craft capable of moving supplies reliably and at scale into austere environments under threat. To address that gap at meaningful scale and engage directly with military stakeholders, we established Bulwark Dynamics in the United States.

Before we talk about your solution, can you unpack the problem space?

In a Pacific conflict scenario, United States forces may need to distribute units across numerous islands rather than concentrate them on a small number of large platforms. This shift toward dispersion and mobility increases the burden on logistics.

The current maritime logistics fleet is limited in size, aging, and largely optimized for uncontested operations. Many vessels were built decades ago and operate as large, crewed assets. At the same time, doctrine increasingly assumes distributed operations across vast distances. This creates a mismatch between how forces plan to fight and how they are sustained.

Because the fleet is concentrated in a relatively small number of large vessels, it introduces both capacity limitations and single points of failure. In contested waters, detection can quickly lead to missile threats, making traditional logistics operations significantly more dangerous. In distributed maritime operations, the ability to move mass, distribute it across austere shorelines, and continue operating after losses becomes decisive.

So what is Bulwark building to address this gap?

We are building autonomous landing craft designed specifically for contested maritime logistics. These vessels are engineered to operate in rough sea conditions, function under threat, and scale to meaningful production volumes.

We are currently developing a 15 foot prototype and a 50 foot vessel. The core concept is direct shore to shore delivery without reliance on ports or piers. The vessels are designed to beach directly on austere coastlines. The system does not require cranes or specialized infrastructure for loading and unloading cargo. It is also designed to operate in degraded environments, including GPS denied conditions. We completed our 15 foot prototype rapidly and have already begun water testing.

What are the biggest technical challenges you're facing?

Autonomy on water differs fundamentally from autonomy on land. On land, perception and obstacle avoidance dominate. On water, waves, wind, and currents create constant disturbances. Maintaining the course requires continuous control adjustments. In certain conditions, the vessel must intentionally point away from its target direction and apply power simply to maintain the intended trajectory.

Communication is another constraint. Systems operating in contested environments must maintain a low signature, which limits communication frequency and methods. Scalability is equally critical. Building a small number of prototypes is one challenge. Producing dozens of vessels per year requires a manufacturing oriented design philosophy, disciplined supply chain planning, and repeatable testing infrastructure.

Why hasn't anyone built this before?

The core technologies for remote operation and autonomy have existed for many years. The primary constraint has been funding and strategic prioritization. Historically, logistics has received less attention than visible combat systems. Only recently has contested logistics been elevated as a top priority within the Department of Defense. As attention and funding increase, more companies are entering the space. The prior lack of sustained focus is a key reason the capability gap persists.

What's ahead for Bulwark Dynamics?

We are currently raising our seed round to accelerate development of our 50 foot landing craft, expand our core technologies and team, and pursue and secure paid government contracts Many companies retrofit existing vessels. Our approach is to design the platform and the logistics mission as an integrated system, from hull architecture to beaching and cargo handling, so it can scale into a fleet rather than remain a limited prototype.

How did you achieve this speed?

From the outset, we prioritized assembling a high caliber team. We brought in a former NASA Chief Engineer, as well as engineers from Tesla. For business development, we recruited a former United States Navy Surface Warfare Officer with experience in aerospace engineering and defense client engagement, including work with Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen Hamilton. Our co-founder Yuta engaged directly with end users early on to gather operational feedback. With a focused team of four engineers, we built a 15 foot working prototype in approximately 40 days and are now engaging deeply with Department of Defense stakeholders. We continue to scale the team and believe engineers who are comfortable building from first principles are essential to solving this class of problem.

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