Viking was a corporation jointly established by Kockums in Sweden, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace in Norway and Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark.

The idea was to develop modern successor to the Swedish Gotland class, that would have cost about one third of the German Type 214.

[2] It was initially planned that the Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian navies would purchase two, four, and four Viking-class submarines each starting in 2005.

When the Royal Danish Navy announced that they would stop using submarines completely in the summer of 2004,[citation needed] the whole Viking project was cancelled.

Currently Kockums is doing low-intensive continuous research, based on the Viking design, towards the A26 submarine for Sweden.