Space Beach will soon get a new resident.<\/p>\n
Anduril Industries, a defense company headquartered in Costa Mesa, announced plans on Thursday, Jan. 22, to open a major new campus in Long Beach. The facility will be at Douglas Park, the former home to Boeing\u2019s C-17 production compound, near the Long Beach Airport, according to company spokesperson Shannon Prior.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s new campus, its announcement said, will house six buildings across 1.18 million square feet. About 435,000 square feet of the campus will be dedicated to industrial research and development space, with the additional 750,000 square feet being reserved for office space.<\/p>\n
In total, the company expects to employ 5,500 people on site once the new campus is up-and-running \u2014 which is expected in mid-2027, Anduril Industries said.<\/p>\n
Anduril picked Long Beach, according to its announcement, because of the city\u2019s longstanding history with U.S. defense and industrial legacy \u2014 and because it sits at the heart of the industry\u2019s ecosystem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a short drive of Hawthorne, Torrance and the South Bay, the region offers access to one of the deepest concentrations of engineering and technical talent in the country,\u201d the company said. \u201cThat combination of history, talent and industrial infrastructure makes Long Beach a natural place for Anduril to continue scaling its operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new campus will also be built to support Anduril\u2019s existing workflows.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe campus is located approximately 30 minutes from Anduril\u2019s Costa Mesa headquarters and about 90 minutes from the company\u2019s Capistrano test site, allowing teams to design, test, and iterate quickly across locations,\u201d Anduril said. \u201cThis close physical integration is central to Anduril\u2019s approach to rapid development and deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anduril is also developing Arsenal-1, a massive manufacturing facility, in Ohio. The company is investing nearly $1 billion of its own money into that development, which is expected to bring more than 4,000 jobs to the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, these facilities form a growing industrial backbone designed to support sustained production, rapid iteration, and long-term delivery for customers worldwide,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
Anduril Industries was co-founded in 2017 in Orange County by Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and designer of Facebook\u2019s (now Meta) Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.<\/p>\n
Palmer was fired from Facebook in 2017<\/a> over a controversy surrounding his $10,000 donation to President Donald Trump\u2019s first campaign. It was later revealed that he negotiated a $100 million payout from the company after he hired an employment lawyer to argue Facebook had broken state law, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n That same year, Palmer co-founded Anduril Industries with former Oculus VR hardware developer Joseph Chen, alongside former Palantir Technology employees Brain Schimpf, Trae Stephens and Matt Grimm.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s mission is \u201ctransforming defense capabilities with advanced technology,\u201d according to its website. The company is focused on bolstering U.S. and allied military capabilities using artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and autonomous systems, according to its website.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s flagship offering is Lattice, a software platform that \u201cpowers the capabilities of our software-defined weapons, and easily integrates with third-party and government-owned capabilities to create a comprehensive, extensible network of sensors and effectors,\u201d the company\u2019s website says.<\/p>\n Anduril is also significantly involved in surveilling America\u2019s Southern border with Mexico, according to its website. Its Sentry towers, which uses artificial intelligence to \u201cprovide highly accurate, persistent and autonomous awareness across land, sea and air,\u201d are already in use to monitor more than 30% of the U.S.-Mexico border, its website says.<\/p>\n \u201cAutonomous Sentry towers detect, classify, and track objects of interest in real-time across vast and remote terrains,\u201d the company\u2019s website says, \u201csaving manpower and cost spent on manual surveillance while keeping agents out of harm\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n Anduril was also a large beneficiary of Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act \u2014 which included a provision requiring border surveillance to be autonomous \u2014 effectively making Anduril the only government-approved border tower vendor,<\/a> as reported by The Intercept.<\/p>\n The company, though, doesn\u2019t contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Palmer said Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,\u201d Palmer said, \u201cand, as such, do not deploy technology to support their interior immigration enforcement mission set.\u201d<\/p>\n Since it was founded in 2017, the privately held Anduril\u2019s valuation has more than doubled to $30.5 billion,<\/a> though executives have deflected questions about its plans to go public, according to financial reports on Crunchbase, an online database for private companies. Two years ago,<\/a> the defense contractor was valued at $14 billion.<\/p>\n With the addition of real estate near the Long Beach Airport, the company is expected to see even more growth because of an expected surge in military contracts under President Donald Trump, who earlier this month said he would ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a massive $500 billion increase from this year\u2019s Pentagon budget.<\/p>\n In 2023, Anduril acquired a solid-rocket motor company and has invested more than $75 million to build a production facility in McHenry, Mississippi. Last month, Boeing chose Anduril to build the rocket motors<\/a> for the U.S. Army\u2019s Integrated Fires Protection Capability system. That mobile, ground-based weapons system is designed to defeat cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft systems, and rockets, artillery and mortars.<\/p>\n The company is also working on new infantry goggles for the Army,<\/a> a project that could be valued at more than $20 billion in the next decade, if all options are exercised.\u00a0 And in May, Andruil said it would partner with Meta to develop new products for the military,<\/a> including an AI-powered helmet.<\/p>\n Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, in a statement included in Anduril\u2019s announcement, said the company\u2019s decision to open a new campus in the city is a \u201cvote of confidence\u201d in Long Beach\u2019s advanced manufacturing and aerospace leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cLong Beach has long been a naval and manufacturing city, with a history of building complex aircraft. Today, the next generation of companies is choosing to build and hire here again,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cWe are proud to welcome Anduril to Space Beach \u2013 one of the fastest-growing aerospace and advanced manufacturing hubs in the country, and we look forward to working with our world-class education and workforce partners to prepare local talent to meet this demand.\u201d<\/p>\n Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jeremy Harris similarly applauded Anduril\u2019s expansion to the city on Thursday, hailing the news as a win for Long Beach\u2019s long-term economic growth and its goal to create 8,000 new jobs as part of its Accler8 by \u201928 initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough ongoing collaboration with the City of Long Beach, including efforts like Grow Long Beach, job creation remains central to a strong local economy,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThe Chamber looks forward to continuing this work alongside the City and our partners to support employers and the workforce that drives our region forward.\u201d<\/p>\n This story is breaking and will be updated.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Space Beach will soon get a new resident. 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