US President Donald Trump has announced Arsenal-2, a new software-defined shipyard backed by a $3.7 billion private capital investment by Anduril Industries.
The facility will manufacture critical components for the Virginia-class submarine.
The US Navy has awarded Anduril a contract of up to $2.9 billion, with payments tied directly to demonstrated production outcomes. This contract structure reportedly ensures that Anduril takes on the majority of the execution risk.
Altogether, this equates to a $6.6 billion investment in America’s submarine industrial base.
Virginia-class submarines are built by General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding as part of one of the most complex manufacturing enterprises in the US.
Meeting domestic fleet requirements and AUKUS commitments will require substantial growth across that enterprise, including new suppliers, infrastructure, workforce, and production capacity. Arsenal-2 is intended to contribute to that expansion.
Arsenal-2 will build complex components and large scale assemblies of the Virginia-class submarine and deliver them to Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding for final assembly. Adding another source of this work will allow more submarine construction to happen in parallel across the industrial base and aims to increase the overall capacity available to the Virginia-class program.
Arsenal-2 will be built at Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County, Maryland.
Permitting and site preparation will begin immediately, with construction commencing as soon as the necessary approvals are in place. Initial operations are expected to come online in 2030, with production scaling progressively thereafter as Anduril builds the workforce, supplier base, infrastructure, and manufacturing throughput required for submarine production.
Arsenal-2 will sit within the Sparrows Point complex. Existing road, rail, and maritime infrastructure connect the site to suppliers and to the nation's two primary submarine builders.
Baltimore's shipyards produced the first Liberty Ship during World War II, and Sparrows Point was once known as the 'Patriarch of U.S. Tanker Builders.' Arsenal-2 will return shipbuilding to a site that once helped define American naval power.