Australia’s nuclear submarine deal under security partnership AUKUS is estimated to cost at least $116 billion (US$83 billion), a defence think tank said. In an analysis of the deal, the Australia Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) examined the procedures and issues the project would likely need to address and calculated a cost estimate according to currently known factors. At present, the only official estimates that have been given is that the AUKUS deal is likely to cost more than the previous $90 billion submarine project with the French defence contractor, Naval Group, for 12 attack-class diesel submarines. ASPI believes that at an absolute minimum, the project will cost around $70 billion (US$50 billion), or $116 billion when accounting for inflation. However, the estimate is expected to grow “substantially” once cost drivers become clearer. “Those [cost drivers] include both the U.S. and UK moving to bigger submarine designs, our choice of build …