Anduril Industries on Monday said it has opened an office in Sydney, Australia, a first step in its plan to begin designing, developing and manufacturing products in Australia and bring its capabilities and solutions in autonomy, unmanned systems and networking to Australian defense and government customers.

Anduril, which is based in California and also has offices in the United Kingdom, is hiring software engineers and mission operations engineers in Australia, the company said on its LinkedIn page.

Anduril Australia is led by David Goodrich, an international business executive who has advised the Australian Defense Force for a decade and other government agencies.

“The Australian Defense Force has long punched above its weight and been in the vanguard of regional security in the Indo-Pacific region, a role they will be asked to play more and more in the coming decades,” Brian Schimpf, Anduril’s CEO, said in a statement. “Landmark treaties like AUKUS are signs that the century-long bond between the United States and Australia is only growing tighter and stronger. Australia has also embraced and deployed cutting-edge military technology—RAAF’s Loyal Wingman program is now one of the most impressive and innovative defense programs in the world. Add to that a rich bed of Aussie STEM talent, and Australia is the perfect place for Anduril to grow.”

Goodrich said in a statement that it’s time for Australia to look at its defense technology needs “with fresh eyes,” highlighting the need for interoperable, networked capabilities in the new battlespace.

Anduril offers its Lattice OS backbone, an autonomy software that brings together computer vision, machine learning and mesh networking to fuse real-time data into a single, autonomous and scalable operating picture. The company also provides its Sentry autonomous surveillance towers for force protection and border and maritime security applications, a range of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for surveillance and counter-UAS, and autonomous underwater vehicle technology.

Anduril recently won a nearly $1 billion contract to provide U.S. Special Operations Forces worldwide with systems integration for counter-UAS needs.