Defense Firm Anduril Plans First Major American-Made Laptop in Decades

You can’t buy a made-in-America laptop. Dell, HP, Microsoft, and Apple were all founded in America, and Macs carry the branding of “Designed by Apple in California,” but they’re all made in factories in China and Vietnam, from components and materials sourced from other factories in the region.This is a good thing for most consumers. Foxconn doesn’t just have more expertise to build iPhones than any American manufacturer, at a standard unachievable outside of its Chinese factories, but it also does so with labor paid less for longer hours than is palatable in the West.But it’s a real security risk that China — America’s adversary — and Taiwan — China’s chief acquisition target, to put it politely — have a monopoly over the technology the West and its armed forces rely on.Palmer Luckey, through his defense disruptor company Anduril, has made the first serious effort in decades to resolve this, with BlueChip: a rugged laptop line for government, defense, first responders, and public safety, designed in California and to be assembled in America. Anduril plans to assemble the circuit boards at its Arsenal-1 plant in Ohio — where it currently makes its Fury uncrewed fighter jet — and San Diego’s Qualcomm Technologies will supply a Snapdragon X Series processor for it, made at the new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plant in Arizona.Anduril said America and its allies account for more than 90 percent of the prototypes’ component procurement cost, and it’s working on a process so that the laptop’s outer shell can be machined in America, the battery system can be made here too, and the screen can be made of American-made glass. The display panel itself is expected to start out, at least, as a Chinese part, but once they start making these at scale, processes can be refined and developed to make even more of the computer in America.At the moment, its first laptop exists just as a prototype, and will be purchased by state bodies, not individuals — and even so, it will be a meaningfully more expensive computer compared to an import. But over time, if this is a success, it could lead to a true American-made consumer laptop; and if it feels modern, looks good, and has great performance, many people will be happy to pay a premium for a true American-made laptop. After all, if you’re willing to pay more for American-made clothes, why should electronics be any different?

Defense Firm Anduril Plans First Major American-Made Laptop in Decades

Defense Firm Anduril Plans First Major American-Made Laptop in Decades

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