Anduril, a technology startup that designs autonomous systems and weapons for government agencies and the military, plans to build a billion-dollar factory in Columbus, Ohio, the company announced Thursday.
He said the factory, called Arsenal-1 and described as a “large-scale” factory, would create more than 4,000 jobs in Ohio and eventually produce tens of thousands of autonomous systems and weapons each year .
“We’re going to create something with our partners in Ohio that doesn’t currently exist” on such a scale, Chris Brose, Anduril’s chief strategy officer, said during a briefing with reporters. The company worked closely with state officials on the project and secured tax breaks to bring it to Columbus.
Anduril, based in Costa Mesa, California, is part of a new wave of defense startups working to build autonomous systems and weapons for the military using the latest artificial intelligence technologies. They include flying drones, underwater ships and surveillance towers that could be deployed along national borders or on a battlefield.
As AI technology began to mature in Silicon Valley, companies like Google in the late 2010s and some tech sector executives, workers and venture capitalists kept the Pentagon at bay. But others, including Anduril and his co-founder Palmer Luckey, a former Facebook executive, have begun creating AI startups specifically for the defense market.
The Pentagon, in recent years, has struggled to find a way to quickly expand its capacity to produce large numbers of autonomous, armed drones. The need has become much more urgent given the use of these tools during the war in Ukraine and China’s efforts to mass produce its own military drones.
The Department of Defense launched a Replicator initiative in 2023 to try to speed up production, but new funding and limited manufacturing capabilities have slowed its progress.
Attitudes toward this type of defense work have been changing in Silicon Valley, with myriad startups and tech giants working with the Pentagon on AI software and hardware.
The new Anduril plant will be located near Rickenbacker International Airport. Initially, the factory will focus on manufacturing the company’s Fury and Roadrunner drones as well as its Barracuda autonomous missiles, Brose said.
Once completed, the factory will span five million square feet. An additional 500 acres are available for expansion, the company said.
Mr. Brose acknowledged that the factory’s annual production of autonomous systems and weapons was unlikely to reach tens of thousands within several years. Anduril already operates factories in Rhode Island, Mississippi, Georgia and Australia.
