We started this company four years ago with a very simple, not easy, but simple mission to redefine maritime superiority for the U.S. and our allies around the world.
It sounds crazy that's even a mission we need to be on. The United States was a maritime superpower. If you go back to World War II, we were capable of building thousands - literally thousands - of vessels every single year. That capacity has eroded and eroded over time, to where now the United States stands at 0.1 percent of global shipbuilding capacity. Zero point one percent, and as our capacity eroded, China invested.
In the last 30 years, the Chinese have gone from five percent of global shipbuilding capacity to right around 60 percent I've even seen reports of 80 precent going to China, and they subsidize the entire industry, from raw material to labor to free financing, and then a subsidy on the construction build at the end of it. Why do they do that? Because it's that strategic. It's that important. There's a reason the Vice President of the United States is coming to talk to us today about what we're doing at Port Alpha, and it's not because of how cool I am. It's because of how important shipbuilding is to this country.
So four years ago, we saw this problem, and what did we start doing at Saronic? Well, we just started building. The time for looking and observing was over. We started with small unmanned surface vessels that could be built into the thousands and controlled by the most advanced software and economy anywhere on the planet. That could deter a much larger fleet. That turned into Corsair. That is a 24-foot fully autonomous speedboat that's being deployed in the Navy right now. You've seen it in action. Corsair was used to rescue two downed Apache helicopter pilots in the Straits of Hormuz, and weeks later was used in an offensive strike on a port in Iran. This is how you deliver real capabilities at scale to our warfighters as fast as possible. And then there's Marauder, a 180-foot, fully autonomous ship built in Franklin, Louisiana. We designed, built, launched, and tested that ship in under 12 months. That's not how shipbuilding works in this country, until now, right? And not only did we build one ship, we built the team. We had 30 employees when we started. We now have close to 400.
We've invested 300 million dollars in brand new shipyard infrastructure in Franklin to scale the production of Marauder. So, starting January 1st of 2027, three months from now, we'll have the production capacity to build 20 Marauders per year. And we were actually just awarded a production contract for Marauder from the United States Navy for the MUSV program, and deliver we will.
And then there's what we're here to talk about today, Port Alpha. What is it? What does it unlock? What does it deliver to the country? I’ll make it very simple: massive new amounts of net new shipbuilding capacity, massive new amounts. The United States today has 100,000 gross tons of shipbuilding capacity. Now, if you're anything like me, when I first heard that stat, didn't really mean much. How do you put that in context? Well, our first phase of our first phase of our project will bring online 150,000 gross tons. It will 2.5x the capacity in the United States right now by 2028. And that's just the start. That is literally just the beginning, right?
Port Alpha sits on 835 acres. We have the ability to expand to 4,400 acres. Now, again, to me, that's just a lot of land, and then a lot more land, right? How do we put that in context? Well, here are the five largest shipyards in the United States today. Cumulatively, those shipyards equal 2,500 acres. Here are those five shipyards inside Port Alpha. That's the scale we're talking about. That's the vision that we have here at Saronic. We'll be able to build 850-foot ships, ultimately up to 1,200-foot ships, the largest ships in the world. But it's not just about the products. It's not just about what we're building. It's also how we're building, building for the future, not legacy technology and legacy shipyards, but new technology driven by autonomy in a brand new shipyard.
We are starting from scratch, designing the yard from its core for production at scale. How do you leverage autonomy not just in our vessels, but to build our vessels? How do you lay out efficient material flows so that you can increase production and drive down cost. That's what's needed. That's what Port Alpha unlocks in a really big way. And we are going to bring online millions of gross tons of shipbuilding capacity. We are going to invest billions of dollars into this project, into this community. We are going to create 10,000 direct shipbuilding jobs over the next ten years, $160 billion of economic impact to the region. This is truly transformational.
In fact, a mentor of mine reminded me before the show, this is the first new shipyard the United States has built since World War II. And there's already the demand. We haven't even formally broken ground, and we have a contract to build LCU or landing craft utility vessels for the Navy and the Marine Corps. There is a capacity problem in the United States, and Saronic and Port Alpha is solving it. And make no mistake, autonomy will define the next 100 years of the maritime industry, of maritime dominance, and Saronic is leading the way for our country and for our allies.
This is an all-of-country effort. This is not something that Saronic can do alone. Every person that I thanked at the beginning is part of this project with us. State, local, federal leaders, the Navy, leaders of the Department of War, local leaders here in Brownsville-we can't do this without you all. The time to build is now. There's no more time to wait. We're gonna go build the future here in Port Alpha, and let's go build it together.
Thank you all.
Editor's Note: The above remarks were delivered by Dino Mavrookas, co-founder and CEO of Saronic Technologies, at a groundbreaking ceremony for the company's Port Alpha project at the Port of Brownsville.
