Defense technology company Anduril announced on Thursday its plans to expand its Southern California presence with a major new campus in Long Beach. This coastal city is where founder Palmer Luckey grew up. The expanded campus will eventually support approximately 5,500 new jobs, which Luckey confirmed are new positions and not transfers from the company’s other operations.
Anduril’s headquarters is located nearby in Costa Mesa, California, and the company also operates a massive manufacturing facility in Ohio. The new Long Beach campus will span 1.18 million square feet across six buildings. It will combine office space with industrial areas dedicated to research and development, and is expected to be ready by mid-2027.
Luckey described Long Beach as a major aerospace hub right in the company’s backyard, explaining the choice of location. The plan is to hire a similar mix of employees as at the headquarters, including manufacturing workers, technicians, assembly workers, and engineers across various disciplines such as electrical, mechanical, and aerodynamics. The campus will also feature build and test roles, and many logistics personnel to handle the global distribution of the products made there.
While bringing thousands of jobs to his hometown made headlines, Luckey said the most exciting aspect of Anduril’s overall expansion is the fighter jet program. He described a vision where autonomous fighter jets could be manufactured to take off directly from a factory and fly to wherever a customer needs them, potentially flying directly from the factory into combat, which he finds extremely compelling.
A company spokesperson clarified that the Long Beach facility will not directly manufacture the fighter jets. Instead, it will focus on manufacturing-adjacent work like research and development. The actual manufacturing will occur at the company’s large Ohio facility.
Anduril produces autonomous military drones and aircraft for land, air, and sea. In 2025, the company unveiled an autonomous fighter jet called Fury. It is designed to fly using AI, executing flight plans set by humans rather than being piloted remotely. The Fury completed its first test flight in California on October 31.