Anduril has committed to meeting the Buy American Act's domestic-content threshold with its first BlueChip laptop when it ships in 2027, after initially declining to make that promise. The defense contractor's communications vice president, Shannon Prior, said the laptop is being developed to exceed the 65 percent threshold for U.S. domestic content at launch. Qualcomm is partnering with Anduril on the machine, which the companies announced would be built entirely in the United States.
The commitment follows two days of questions from reporters about how much of the laptop would actually be made domestically. Earlier in the week, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey told journalists on a call that the company has a technical roadmap to reach 100 percent domestic production over time. But when asked what percentage of components would be U.S.-made at launch, he said the figure was to be determined. A spokesperson later said the prototype was approximately 32 percent U.S.-origin by component procurement cost, with more than 90 percent sourced from the United States and allied countries combined, and that the final percentage remained unsettled. On Wednesday, Prior said the earlier response was incorrect and that meeting the 65 percent mark is a fundamental objective of the program.
The Buy American Act, which dates to 1933, was updated during the Biden Administration to require that at least 65 percent of the cost of a product's components be made domestically for the product to qualify as domestic. That figure rises to 75 percent in 2029. Federal agencies generally cannot buy products that fall short of the standard without a waiver, and Luckey argued on the call that agencies rely on those waivers extensively for computer procurements.
The domestic-content question has become a recurring one for companies promising U.S. manufacturing. No major American computer company, including Apple, Dell, HP and Microsoft, builds laptops in the United States. The Verge has pressed other firms on similar claims, including router maker TP-Link.
Anduril's press release describes the first laptop as designed and assembled in the United States, language that does not by itself guarantee domestic manufacturing. Luckey told reporters the company is not merely trying to clear the minimum bar for Made in America. The precise domestic-content percentage of the final product is still being determined as Anduril finalizes suppliers and works through prototypes, and the company said it looks forward to sharing more next year.
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