Defense technology company Anduril intends to stand up a brand new manufacturing facility designed to “hyperscale” production of autonomous systems and weapons for the Defense Department, the company announced Thursday.
Dubbed Arsenal-1, the new plant will allow Anduril to manufacture “tens of thousands” of autonomous systems by leveraging simplified, modular and software-defined design and production techniques not commonly used by traditional defense contractors, Chris Brose, Anduril’s chief strategy officer, said during a meeting with reporters.
With a focus on long-range, survivable platforms with larger payloads that can operate in the Indo-Pacific, the company hopes Arsenal-1 will better position the United States in its ability to rapidly scale and field systems for current and future conflicts, Brose said.
“We will be able to deliver what the government has been asking for for years, which is a sufficient supply of defense capabilities that are actually capable of generating deterrence, that are capable of adapting with new technologies and with threats as they evolve, that are going to be mass-producible in the ways that we’ve known for a long time that we need them,” he said.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. defense industrial base has been consolidated to a handful of companies that produce very exquisite military systems for the Defense Department. But as the Pentagon prepares for large-scale conflict in the Indo-Pacific, the demand for new defense capabilities has greatly outpaced America’s ability to manufacture them — an issue that has been emphasized as the war in Ukraine continues.
“We’re struggling to do basic things like replace Stingers and Javelins, and this is like the baby version of the problem,” Brose said. “When you look at the Indo-Pacom version of that problem — where, again, war games have suggested for years that we would run out of critical munitions in the first week of a conflict — it takes even longer and harder to replace systems like that.”
To address the problem, Arsenal-1 will enable Anduril to produce autonomous systems that are specifically designed for simplicity, modularity and mass-producibility. As a result, the company should be able to easily modify systems with new technologies in order to meet new requirements and emerging threats, he said.
Anduril plans to leverage its software platform known as Lattice to manufacture systems at Arsenal-1. The technology gives the company “the ability to start with a mature software platform and then build modular, producible weapons from it, where we can control how all the different subsystems interface into the overall platform,” he added.
In addition, the company plans to leverage commercial industries as much as possible. That includes commercial supply chains, as well as a more generalized workforce that isn’t necessarily defense specific but is still able to build the systems, Brose said.
Traditional weapons programs are often defined by hyper-specific requirements and include exquisite subsystems, making it hard to effectively scale their supply chains and enable mass production, Brose noted. While Anduril doesn’t plan to eliminate military-specific components entirely, the company hopes it can minimize them from the beginning of the design phase.
“How you design these systems to take advantage of commercial supplies, commercial subsystems and simpler supply chains wherever possible? It’s a critical design feature,” he said.
Funding for Arsenal-1 will come from non-governmental sources. The company announced Thursday that it had secured $1.5 billion from investors to hyperscale defense manufacturing, part of which will be dedicated to the new manufacturing facility.
“Co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital, Anduril’s Series F values the company at $14 billion and includes new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company, Counterpoint Global, and Baillie Gifford, as well as major commitments from existing investors including Altimeter and Franklin Templeton,” according to a statement.
Anduril is currently scouting potential locations in the United States for Arsenal-1, and the company expects to announce when it will open in the coming months. The organization intends to build all the systems it is already developing — minus energetics due to their specific production and safety regulations, according to Brose.
The facility will likely include advanced manufacturing capabilities such as digital engineering and automation, but Brose emphasized that Anduril doesn’t believe that these technologies alone will be key to Arsenal-1’s success. Instead, the company intends to use the new tools where it most makes sense in the manufacturing process.
Still, Anduril sees inherent value in consolidating the means of production under one roof. In the future, the company hopes to open additional Arsenal facilities — both domestically and abroad, Brose said.
“Having this geographically concentrated, having this all under one roof, is what makes that sort of flexibility and hyperscale production possible, whereas it’s just not achievable when it’s as geographically disaggregated and bespoke as much of defense manufacturing is today,” he said.
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