Jul 4, 2025 | View Online

Good morning. Let’s hope we’ve all had a better start to the week than Pete Hegseth.

Welcome to the second-ever edition of Tectonic—we’re so glad you’re here. In case you missed it, we’ll send you coverage of the latest and greatest in defense innovation every Monday and Thursday from here on out. Expect everything from stories on new tech and investments to Q+As with industry leaders. (Did you miss our sit-down with Shyam Sankar of Palantir?)

Now, let’s get things started.

Today’s newsletter:
🚀 Anduril picks Ohio for Arsenal-1
💥 The Defense Innovation Board takes down the Pentagon

P.S. Expect next week’s newsletter on Tuesday, not Monday. We—like many of you—will be watching the inauguration.

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The planned Arsenal-1 facility in Columbus, OH. Image: Anduril Technologies.

Looks like defense production is coming back to the Buckeye State. 

This morning, Anduril Technologies announced that it will build its long-anticipated Arsenal-1 hyperscale manufacturing facility in Columbus, OH. Anduril will invest $1B of its own capital in the plant, which at full capacity will span 5M+ square feet, employ 4,000 people, and produce tens of thousands of autonomous weapons systems annually. Ohio estimates that Arsenal-1 will add $1B to the state's GDP.

Christian Brose, Anduril’s chief strategy officer, said in a press briefing that construction on the plant would begin “in a matter of weeks and months,” and they expect capabilities to start rolling off the line mid-next year. The factory will kick off with the Fury, Roadrunner, and Barracuda UAVs, and will eventually produce nearly everything Anduril has to offer. 

The announcement comes as Anduril is in the midst of a massive growth spurt. Yesterday, the company revealed that it doubled its revenue last year to nearly $1B.

Factories of the future: In August, Anduril announced a $1.5B Series F co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital to fund the planned Arsenal-1 facility. Current US defense manufacturers, according to the company, can’t produce at the speed and scale needed to deter adversaries like China and Russia. In other words, we’re screwed.

“In a major conflict, use of weapons and munitions would quickly exceed supply—it is projected that the United States would run out of weapons in the first few weeks,” the company wrote in its August statement. Arsenal-1, they say, is the fix.

The Wright legacy: Ohio’s existing aerospace and automobile manufacturing industry make it the ideal place for Arsenal-1, according to Brose. The site is also next to Rickenbacker Airport, granting the company access to two 12,000-foot runways and a 75-acre private apron able to support military-scale aircraft. Plus, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Air Force Research Laboratory are right down the road. 

Anduril will pursue a Job Creation Tax Credit from the Ohio Department of Development and will request $70M from the All Ohio Future Fund for the facility. Ohio also plans to invest $900M in the area surrounding Arsenal-1.

Brose said that there are no plans—yet—for Arsenal-2, and that all current Anduril production facilities would remain open.

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An aerial view of the Pentagon. Image: Sgt. 1st Class Marisol Walker, Office of the Chief, Army Reserve via DVIDS.

In the waning days of the Biden Administration, it seems like everyone is talking about defense innovation. On Monday, the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) released the results of two studies on the US defense industry at its winter board meeting—“Scaling Nontraditional Defense Innovation” and “A Pathway to Scaling Unmanned Weapons Systems”—and it looks like Anduril might be right.

Hiding behind these very mundane titles is a scary truth: the DoD is still not able to rapidly and effectively field emerging technologies or scale the production of unmanned systems. Industry is innovating, but the Pentagon is unable to keep up. It can’t even communicate what it needs.

“Without aggressive action, our warfighters are on track to risk defeat on the battlefield,” DIB Designated Federal Officer Marina Theodotou told Tectonic via email.

Sherpa time: The DIB called for a near-total overhaul of the Pentagon’s approach to scaling non-traditional tech and fielding unmanned systems. Its recommendations include:

But will any of this happen? Theodotou highlighted that the board’s recs have had a 40%+ adoption rate over the last two and a half years. 

“These two latest studies lay out more than 20 practical and actionable recommendations for consideration by the incoming administration,” she said. The ball is in Trump’s court now.

Like Tectonic? You’ll like our summit even more. We’ve still got a few tickets left for the Tectonic Defense Summit on March 10-11, 2025 in Austin, TX. Gather with top figures in military, government, and industry to discuss emerging defense technologies, global security challenges, and the investment opportunities that will shape the future of warfare. Get your tickets now—this tier is almost sold out.

Total global defense expenditure has steadily increased for the last nine years, reaching $2.443T in 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Tensions with Russia and China have driven the surge. 

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