Dive Brief:
- Defense contracting startup Anduril Industries announced last week plans to build a nearly $1 billion autonomous weapon system facility in Pickaway County, Ohio.
- The plant will span 5 million square feet and create 4,008 jobs at full scale by 2035, the company said in the state’s JobsOhio announcement.
- Construction is expected to begin immediately after state and local officials approve incentives, permits and other legal and regulatory matters. Production is expected to begin in July 2026.
Dive Insight:
Anduril is hoping its upcoming facility will help it quickly produce high-tech weapons to enhance national security, co-founder and CEO Brian Schimpf said at the Jan. 15 event announcing the plant.
“We do not have the capability to deter the conflict of today and we are vulnerable to the looming conflict of the future,” Schimpf said. “Put simply, we need to manufacture more weapons faster to support that effort.”
The facility will combine scalable software-driven manufacturing to enable the rapid mass production of autonomous weapons and systems, Schimpf said.
“This is how we move from incremental gains to transformational capability,” he said. “We're ready to respond to demands of both today and tomorrow. This is how we win.”
The funds that will be used to establish the Ohio factory come from Anduril’s series F funding round that raised $1.5 billion in August 2024. Sands Capital and the Peter Thiel-backed Founders Fund led the Series F round, valuing Anduril at $14 billion.
Other investors include Fidelity Management & Research Co., Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global, Baillie Gifford, Altimeter and Franklin Venture Partners.
Anduril’s previous investors included Vice President J.D. Vance, according to the Senate Financial Disclosure website.
Anduril was established in 2017 and co-founded by Palmer Luckey, who designed the virtual reality head-mount display Oculus Rift, which was sold to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion.
When production begins next year, the company will start manufacturing three of its autonomous air systems products, Fury, Roadrunner and Barracuda, Anduril said in an email to Manufacturing Dive. The company has plans to expand into other products as it builds out the plant and new facilities come online.
The upcoming facility will be strategically located near major highways, Rickenbacker International Airport and Rickenbacker Intermodal Terminal, according to the Columbus Regional Airport Authority website.
Access to the airport will provide Anduril with two 12,000-foot runways and a private lot to support its military-scale aircraft, the company said in its press release. The accessibility will ensure rapid delivery of components to customers.
The facility will also be near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which houses the Air Force Research Laboratory. In April 2024, the military branch chose Anduril and defense contractor General Atomics for designing, manufacturing and testing AI-driven software pilotless jets for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
Anduril was awarded another contract earlier this month. The Department of Defense awarded the startup a $14.3 million contract to expand the solid rocket motors industrial base, according to a Jan. 7 press release. The agency’s funds combine with Anduril’s $75 million investment to increase the manufacturing and production capacity of the rocket motors at its facility in McHenry, Mississippi.
