Anduril, a technology start-up that designs autonomous systems and weapons for government and military agencies, plans to build a $1 billion factory in Columbus, Ohio, the company said Thursday.
He said the factory, called Arsenal-1 and described as a “hyperscale” facility, will bring more than 4,000 jobs to Ohio and eventually produce tens of thousands of autonomous systems and weapons each year.
“We will create with our partners in Ohio something that does not currently exist” on that scale, Chris Brose, Anduril’s chief strategy officer, said in a briefing with reporters. The company worked closely with state officials on the project and received tax breaks to locate it in 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 vessels 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 executives, workers and venture capitalists kept the Pentagon at arm’s length. But others, including Anduril and its co-founder Palmer Luckey, a former Facebook executive, have begun creating AI startups specifically for the defense market.
The Pentagon has struggled in recent years to find a way to rapidly 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 limited new funding and manufacturing capacity have slowed its progress.
Attitudes toward this type of defense work have changed in Silicon Valley, with myriad startups and tech giants working with the Pentagon on both AI software and hardware.
Anduril’s new plant will be near Rickenbacker International Airport. Initially, the plant will focus on making the company’s Fury and Roadrunner drones and Barracuda autonomous missiles, Brose said.
Once completed, the factory will span five million square feet. Another 500 acres is available for expansion, the company said.
Brose acknowledged that annual production of autonomous systems and weapons is unlikely to reach tens of thousands for several years. Anduril already operates plants in Rhode Island, Mississippi, Georgia and Australia.