(FOX NEWS) — The U.S. Navy announced a $100 million contract with a California-based AI company whose product can teach drones to hunt for mines.

The agreement with Domino Data Lab, headquartered in San Francisco, comes as the Navy is prioritizing technology to clear underwater mines amid the threat from Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Mine-hunting used to be a job for ships,” Thomas Robinson, Domino’s chief operating officer, told Reuters in an interview. “It’s becoming a job for AI. The Navy is paying for the platform that lets it train, govern, and field that AI at a speed required for contested waters that block global trade and imperil sailors.”

The contract is under the U.S. Navy’s “Project AMMO” Accelerated Machine Learning for Maritime Operations, a program that will detect underwater mines faster and with more accuracy that does not endanger the lives of U.S. Navy sailors and expensive ships.