An American arms company is planning to open a huge new factory in the UK, aiming to produce squadrons of advanced attack drones for the British Armed Forces.
The factory could strengthen European defences against Russia but also boost domestic economic growth.
The military-tech startup Anduril is examining possible locations for a complex that would create unmanned and autonomous weapons for land, sea and air, The i Paper understands.
A source in the defence industry said the project would create thousands of jobs if it goes ahead. It could also serve as a shot in the arm for the wider economy, which shrank unexpectedly by 0.1 per cent in January.
The plans are still at a sensitive stage and have not yet been publicly announced.
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However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has already signalled its support for the Californian firm by awarding Anduril a £30m contract on Ukraine’s behalf, ordering attack drones to fight the Russian invasion.
Such a factory would be a “big deal” for the defence industry, according to Professor Peter Lee, a drones experts at Portsmouth University. He said it could signal the prospect of more startups emerging, leading to greater and faster innovation, although others are more sceptical of unproven firms.
One defence analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, questioned whether the UK will want to spend big sums on the kinds of expensive and highly advanced weapons that Anduril is seeking to specialise in. They said the Ukraine war had shown how prioritising greater numbers of cheaper weapons can be advantageous.
It may also prompt renewed discussions about the ethics of weapons becoming increasingly autonomous as more of them are fitted with artificial intelligence.
Anduril has agreed a partnership with OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, to help develop systems that can detect enemy drones and counter them.
This month Defence Secretary John Healey, right, visited the Washington office of Anduril, founded by Palmer Luckey, left (Photos: UK Government; Getty Images)Where the factory could be built
One site believed to be under strong consideration for the factory is the arc of land between Oxford and Cambridge, where the Government hopes to cultivate a technological business hub and create “Europe’s Silicon Valley“.
The North West of England is another area apparently being examined, where regional mayors have been pleading the Government to fund or support more investment.
The factory should be capable of researching, developing and building a wide range of different weapons, from start to finish, all at a single site.
It could be the European equivalent of the Arsenal-1 “hyperscale manufacturing facility” that Anduril intends to open in the US state of Ohio next year. It has promised this vast complex, covering 5 million sq ft, will “redefine the scale and speed that autonomous systems and weapons can be produced”.
Anduril’s quirky Trump-supporting founder
Anduril was founded by the American tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, creator of the groundbreaking Oculus Rift virtual reality gaming headset, which he later sold to Facebook for $2bn. Palmer Luckey showing off one of Anduril’s drones at its headquarters in California (Photo: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty) Luckey, instantly recognisable thanks to his “tech bro” fashion sense, was fired by Facebook in 2016, reportedly after donating $10,000 to a pro-Trump campaign mocking Hillary Clinton. He launched Anduril Industries the following year. It is named after a sword in Lord of the Rings, and its initials – AI – are no coincidence. It is now valued at $28bn (£22bn). Anduril engineers have tested the Altius-600 for at Predannack Airfield in Cornwall (Photo: Anduril)UK’s race to build military drones
The UK has been using large, reusable armed drones since 2007, but the Ukraine war has seen a sudden advancement in smaller, single-use “kamikaze” models. These weapons – and systems to stop enemy drones – have quickly become a spending priority.
With the Government increasing its military budget to 2.5 per cent of GDP, Anduril is banking on the UK investing heavily in drone technology for decades to come, once the Strategic Defence Review concludes this year.
The firm’s founder said in an interview with The Times last month: “The UK in particular is not planning on growing the size of its Armed Forces in terms of people, so it needs to recognise that it needs to be leaning very heavily on systems that remove manning from the equation.”
The factory would create greater competition for the UK’s established defence “prime”, BAE. It is building uncrewed land vehicles fitted with guns, but is yet to produce any armed aerial drones.
Anduril released images of its Altius drones destroying mock Russian missile launchers last year (Photo: Altius)Professor Lee, author of Reaper Force – Inside Britain’s Drone Wars, said the MoD has previously found it hard to “enable startups and other companies to respond very rapidly to new demands”.
“That seems to be Anduril’s selling point. They’re trying to get the speed and flexibility of small startups, but on a larger scale. If they achieve that, it could be highly successful.
“AI is moving weapon technology forward rapidly. I think this will be the first of a number of similar developments, when defence budgets across the whole of Nato are inevitably going up.”
A German tech company, Helsing, announced in December that it was investing £350m into UK operations, including a manufacturing facility for its HX-2 strike drone. It plans to make 6,000 of these for Ukraine.
Anduril’s technology
The UK has ordered Altius 600m and Altius 700m drones for Ukraine to use in the Black Sea area. These are known as loitering munitions, which can fly for an extended period of time until they spot a target, which they then crash into, causing their warhead to explode. In tests by the US army at a range in Utah a year ago, the Altius weapons achieved six direct hits in six missions, according to Anduril. It has released footage of the drones being launched from helicopters and ground-based vehicles, and destroying a mock Russian surface-to-air missile launcher. Rivals point out they have not yet been tested in battle. US soldiers training with an Anduril Ghost X drone in Germany last month (Photo: Armin Weigel/AFP)Anduril hinted at an “expansion of our presence here in the UK” after the Defence Secretary, John Healey, visited its offices in Washington this month.
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The F-35 fighter jet needs American software updates and links to US data to aid maintenance, for example. Upkeep of the submarine-based Trident nuclear missile system also requires access to facilities controlled by Washington.
But a source said that Anduril is keen for its UK arm to effectively become a “sovereign supplier” for the MoD. It would intend to use British-based designers and supply chains, to create weapons that do not depend on US export licences and would not be at risk of tariffs in a trade war.
An Anduril UK spokesperson said: “Due to ongoing commercial sensitivities, it would not be appropriate to comment on this at this time. However, we are very excited to be continuing our growth and commitment to providing sovereign capabilities here in the UK.”
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