Anduril Industries, a venture-backed defense giant, is acquiring Blue Force Technologies, the aerospace and engineering firm behind the unmanned fighter jet, as it aims to build out its suite of self-driving systems for national security clients.
Autonomous fighter jets have the attributes that you're going to need to be relevant to what everybody is focused on right now: the pacing threat of China, competition in the Indo-Pacific theater, he said. In those theaters, capabilities such as long range, speed and greater payload capacity - capabilities of a fighter jet - are key.
In July last year, Lockheed Martin announced a deal for 398 aircraft at a cost of $30 billion. Anduril is envisioning something different for Fury - and for the rest of unmanned systems in its product line. That vision includes low-cost systems, built at a high volume, with zero human operator on board.
Fury will eventually fly, as does all of the company's other systems, on Anduril's Lattice AI-powered software. The Lattice for Mission Autonomy platform will enable a single human operator to coordinate autonomous assets at the same time, the company said earlier this year.
The acquisition also provides Anduril with key expansion into North Carolina's Research Triangle area where Blue Force is based, and access to their around 90-person team. Anduril will likely benefit from Blue Force's composite manufacturing, tooling and production capabilities, as well as its Fury jet, which is one of Blue Force's core technologies.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal comes just over two months after Anduril announced that it was buying solid rocket motor company Adranos. Other acquisitions are clearly a key part of the company's expansion strategy, including Dive Technologies, an autonomous underwater vehicle developer; passive sensing company Copious Imaging, and unmanned drone startup Area-I.