Anduril launches new shipyard to manufacture components for Virginia-class subs

WASHINGTON — Anduril is establishing a new shipyard to manufacture parts for Virginia-class submarines in Baltimore County, Md., the company and the White House announced today.

The new facility, dubbed Arsenal-2, comes with a $6.6 billion investment, including $3.7 billion in private capital and up to $2.9 billion from the Navy. And notably, today’s announcement marks Anduril’s first entry into the supply chain for a major legacy defense program.

“This contract structure ensures that Anduril, not the taxpayer, takes on the majority of the execution risk, aligning incentives to ensure on-time, high-quality submarine production,” Anduril said in a news release today. 

President Donald Trump is also expected to issue remarks later today in Baltimore County as part of the new shipyard announcement.

General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding jointly build Virginia-class submarines, and Arsenal-2 is positioned to produce “complex components and large scale assemblies” for the vessels, according to the company. Supporting the submarine industrial base is a top priority for the Navy, as industry has struggled to hit the service’s annual production goals for the Virginia-class.

“Adding another source of this work will allow more submarine construction to happen in parallel across the industrial base and increase the overall capacity available to the Virginia-class program,” Anduril said in its release.

Anduril anticipates that the shipyard will create more than 3,000 direct jobs and more than 11,000 indirect jobs at the new facility, which is located at Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County, Md. The 2 million-square-foot facility is expected to launch initial operations in 2030, and permitting is slated to kick off immediately, paving the way for construction to start once the firm receives the appropriate administrative green lights. 

Chris Brose, Anduril’s president and chief strategy officer, told reporters today that the company has been discussing the need for additional shipyard production capacity with the administration and Navy for nearly two years.

“We need to grow the maritime industrial base, the submarine industrial base, so that we can produce more submarines. So the goal here for Anduril is to contribute to that,” Brose said. “This is not about taking food off the plate of anybody. This is about putting more food on the table and being able to meet the requirements that our country has to produce more submarines.”

Anduril plans to initially produce basic modules, such as torpedo tubes, at the facility before eventually expanding into more complex components — including full sections of the vessels, such as the bow.

Anduril will also start to manufacture submarine parts at a new, 160,000-square-foot facility in Orange County, Calif., in tandem with the new Arsenal-2 facility. The Orange County location will support “broader maritime manufacturing efforts” once Arsenal-2 is up and running. 

“The Orange County facility gives Anduril a two-year operational head start to develop and validate manufacturing methods, production workflows, and quality systems before Arsenal-2 comes online,” Anduril said in its release. “It will support prototyping and production of Virginia-class test assets and critical maritime components, including torpedo tubes, while allowing Anduril to recruit and train the early workforce on the systems and standards that will ultimately scale at Arsenal-2.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told the House Appropriations Committee in May that he anticipates industry will deliver two Virginia-class submarines annually by around 2032. The Navy’s shipbuilding plan, also released in May, said investing in the submarine industrial base is paramount to meeting those production goals. 

“The Navy’s requirement to increase the submarine production rate to at least one Columbia-class and two Virginia-class submarines per year remains the top industrial base priority, with a near-term focus on stabilizing the supply chain and growing the skilled workforce needed until full production rates are achieved,” the shipbuilding plan said. 

However, the Virginia-class submarine program has encountered several hurdles connected to late material deliveries and a shortage of experienced workers, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in July. While the Navy wants two Virginia-class submarines produced each year, shipbuilders were producing them at a rate of one per year as of June 2025, the GAO report said.

“Late material deliveries from suppliers and limited availability of experienced workers due to competition in the labor market drive these trends,” the GAO report said. “The Navy plans to improve performance by investing billions of dollars in the supply chain and shipbuilder wages, among other mitigation efforts.” 

A senior administration official told reporters that Anduril’s plans for the facility would add roughly 9 million hours annually to the submarine industrial base, translating to a 15 percent increase for Virginia-class submarine production.

“Having those torpedo tubes earlier would let us move production of current Virginia submarines under construction faster … This brings both resilience and capacity to the submarine industrial base that should absolutely translate to improved Virginia-class construction,” a senior administration official said today.