Dive Brief:
- Anduril Industries and the US Navy announced theirs on Tuesday plans to spend $6.6 billion to build a software-managed shipyard at the Port of Baltimore in Maryland.
- The shipyard, called Arsenal-2, will they span two million square feet and manufacture components for Virginia-class submarines to equip the Navy’s fleet. The site will also create more than 3,100 jobs by 2034, according to the press release.
- Permitting and site preparation “commence immediately” and construction is expected to begin as soon as Anduril receives the necessary approvals for the shipyard. Operations are expected to come online in 2030.
Diving knowledge:
Anduril intends to gradually scale up production once Arsenal-2 begins operations as the defense systems maker builds its workforce, supplier base, infrastructure and production rate required for underwater production.
Arsenal-2 will be built on a 187-acre site for “high-volume, high-precision production of underwater naval capabilities.” Anduril’s software platform, ArsenalOS, will digitally support production and shipyard systems, connecting manufacturing workflows, equipment sequences, material movement, inspection protocols and documentation requirements into a single system.
The system will enable greater consistency and allow workers and managers to have real-time visibility of the Arsenal-2 manufacturing process.
Anduril will invest $3.7 billion, and the remaining $2.9 billion will be financed through a Navy contract, according to the press release. The Navy will issue payments based on production results.
The partners began discussing more than two years ago whether Anduril could help the Navy’s undersea enterprise “in a bigger way,” the company said. said co-founder and CEO Brian Schimpf Tuesday during a press conference with President Donald Trump.
Anduril’s initial response was no, Schimpf said, despite the company building autonomous planes, missiles and the software to connect them.
“Even our most advanced systems are on a different order of complexity than the Virginia-class submarine,” Schimpf continued.
However, the company kept coming back to the “submarine challenge” because its main problem was too important to abandon, the CEO added.
“The more time Anduril spent learning about the industry’s challenges, the clearer the need became to us,” said Schimpf. “The country requires substantially more sites where underwater components can be built.”
Anduril worked with the Navy and other companies throughout the underwater industrial base to understand how the production system works. These companies include Electric Boat, subsidiary of General Dynamicswhich has a multimillion-dollar Navy contract for Virginia-class attack submarines, and Huntington Ingalls at their shipyard in Newport News, Virginia.
“We wanted to know where the most persistent constraints exist and where a new industrial player could make a significant contribution,” Scimpf said. “We also began testing what we were learning. We created a proto-factory in California, where our teams are already demonstrating new manufacturing approaches and developing components for the Virginia class program.”
The Anduril shipyard announcement comes days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced six initiatives change the agency’s strategy.
One of the initiatives is the Meridien Project, in which the co-founder of Anduril Palmer Luckey participates. The initiative will work to identify the capabilities needed to improve DOD technologies on the battlefield. DOD Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael oversees Project Meridian, and the initiative will be co-led by Luckey, Elon Musk and Newt Gingrich. according to a note.
