Drone Maker Anduril Pushes Into Submarines With Maryland Factory

Anduril Industries, known for building drones and autonomous aircraft, is investing $3.7 billion to build a massive new shipbuilding facility in Maryland, a move that will enhance the US Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine production.

The manufacturing complex at Sparrows Point, outside Baltimore, will employ about 3,100 people when fully operational, according to Governor Wes Moore’s office. The facility is expected to begin operations in 2030 and reach full production the following year.

The project would represent a major expansion into traditional shipbuilding for Anduril, the privately held defense company co-founded by Palmer Luckey that built its reputation selling autonomous aircraft, drones, sensors and software.

The new facility is intended to augment existing shipbuilding capacity and presents “an opportunity to really reimagine how a shipyard is built and how this work is done,” Anduril President and Chief Strategy Officer Chris Brose told reporters Tuesday.

President Donald Trump is expected to attend Anduril’s announcement of the new manufacturing effort at Arsenal 2 at Sparrows Point, which was once home to a Bethlehem Steel mill.

That company “created the steel that won us World War II — you all can create the subs and the ships that can win us wars of the future,” Moore said he told Anduril.

Anduril has also developed autonomous undersea vehicles, the Dive-XL and Dive-LD, one of which Iran captured early last month in the Strait of Hormuz.

The new project also puts an unconventional defense contractor into one of the Pentagon’s most strategically important — and troubled — programs.

Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chose Luckey, Elon Musk — another major defense contractor — as well as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to lead Project Meridian, a 120-day plan to study the future of warfare and weaponry.

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The Navy is trying to expand annual submarine production to two Virginia-class attack subs and one Columbia-class ballistic missile vessel, starting in the early 2030s — a pace the existing industrial base has struggled to achieve. The output is currently roughly one per year. The service has experienced a 60% decline in the submarine manufacturing base since the end of the Cold War.

The Navy has increasingly sought to move some of that work away from General Dynamics Corp.’s Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.’s Newport News Shipbuilding, the two yards that assemble the nation’s nuclear-powered submarines. The approach that the service calls strategic outsourcing allows for other manufacturers to construct modules and components that are shipped to the primary yards, freeing their workers and facilities to concentrate on final submarine construction.

The Navy’s part of the contract comes with a $2.9 billion ceiling, based on performance, and will be used to buy the submarine components produced at the site. The government spending is part of a multi-year budget process with the Navy not reallocating any funds on it now, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The facility will support the Virginia-class submarine program by building super modules and casings — essentially, enormous prefabricated sections of the vessel — that can be sent to the nation’s nuclear submarine shipyards for integration into completed boats.

Maryland and Baltimore County have made commitments to match as much as 13% of the anticipated private investment through economic incentive programs and the state will invest in the construction of a center of excellence for work force training, Moore said in an interview with Bloomberg.

The Anduril project follows a string of major investments that Moore, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028, has touted as evidence of Maryland’s campaign to diversify its economy. Samsung Biologics Co. opened its first US manufacturing facility in Rockville this year while Sphere Entertainment plans a smaller version of its Las Vegas venue at the National Harbor resort, which like Rockville is near Washington.

Until 2030, when the shipyard is expected to be functional, Anduril will focus on producing torpedo tubes in California to support production of the Virginia class submarines. Once the Baltimore site is operating, the goal is to add about 9 million hours of labor annually, increasing shipbuilding capacity by 15%, according to a senior administration official.