Its student union has condemned a new collaboration between military giant Lockheed Martin, the Defence Science Institute and the university as "unethical".

It said the university should not be involved in the development of weapons, and research should only be conducted in the "interests of a better and more peaceful society".

The high tech laboratory, the company's first outside the US, will focus on designing sophisticated computer software to help direct attacks, as well as hypersonic flight, robotics, intelligence and surveillance.

It will open in early 2017 on university premises, with its researchers co-located at universities across Australia.

University of Melbourne Student Union president Tyson Holloway-Clarke said the university was "endorsing, and being complicit in this technology which could lead to death and the destruction of property".

"We oppose violence," he said. "We are ideologically opposed to this partnership. It's ethically dubious."

Mr Holloway-Clarke, who put forward a successful motion criticising the plan at a recent student council meeting, said students had not been consulted.

He is now writing to the university and state and federal governments to raise concerns about the arrangement.

Lockheed Martin is spending $13 million on its STELaR Lab, which promises to create jobs for science and technology graduates and will employ 20 employees within three years.

A company spokesman said the lab was a strategic investment and an "independent world-class multidisciplinary research facility." He said the lab was not a partnership with any university, but was ideally situated in Melbourne's university precinct in close proximity to Australia's highest density of PhD students.

"Lockheed Martin laboratories operate on the frontline of applied research and development, and have been responsible for many advanced technology breakthroughs. It is our vision that STELaRLab will add to that unparalleled legacy of technological excellence, and contribute to the advancement of human knowledge," he said.

Federal Minister for Industry, Innovation & Science Greg Hunt and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews attended the launch of the new centre last month.

A University of Melbourne spokeswoman said the university had research relationships with many international organisations. She said these collaborations were established following a "full and considered review of the opportunities and outcomes they provide for the University's staff and students".

She said that universities should be known as lively spaces for debate. "We're proud that our students take an active interest in ensuring Melbourne upholds this ideal," she said.

The lab will be located in the university's engineering and science innovation precinct before moving to a more permanent location as part of the university's Carlton Connect innovation precinct.

"We're looking forward to joining with Lockheed Martin to pursue training opportunities in systems engineering in support of the significant defence effort presently underway in Australia," the dean of Melbourne School of Engineering Iven Mareels said.

In July, two Christians chained themselves to the entry of Lockheed Martin's Dandenong facility in an effort to stop the company making missiles for military drones.