Anduril CEO Predicts Long Geopolitical Conflict With China

Anduril Industries Inc. Geopolitical tensions with China are part of the new reality for American companies, Chief Executive Brian Schimpf said on Friday, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump’s new tariff threats rattled markets.

“I think this is going to be a long-term conflict with China, and it’s just something we have to be prepared for,” Schimpf said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Anduril is the largest of a growing line of defense technology startups that aims to modernize the U.S. military using artificial intelligence, software and an expanding fleet of autonomous vehicles such as drones, fighter jets and submarines. Schimpf said he expects the company to double its revenue this year to more than $2 billion and increase production of its products by 400%.

Anduril and publicly traded Palantir Technologies Inc. Companies such as have long focused on China as a potential rival as the United States seeks to develop defense technology. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar said the dispute between the US and China “has been evolving for much of the last 50 years” and added that he believes China views global power as a zero-sum game. “No country has done more to reduce poverty in China than America,” he said. “No country has done more to undermine America’s prosperity than China.”

Shares of Palantir have been declining in recent years and are up more than 2,000% in the last three years. The company has been buoyed by rising demand for artificial intelligence software. China “has more capacity, pound for pound,” Sankar said. “As a country, we have the best software in the world.”

Venture investors have increased their focus on the defense sector in recent years in light of rising geopolitical tensions with China and reforms to U.S. procurement policies that could benefit startups. Some in the industry are particularly concerned that the United States will fail in the drone arms race with China and are eager to increase production capacity as part of a costly effort to build new US defense factories. According to PitchBook, investors spent almost $20 billion on defense technology in the second quarter of this year, up 200% from the previous year.

Anduril, backed by venture firms such as Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz, was last valued at $30.5 billion. The company counts the United States and allied countries including Britain, Australia and South Korea as customers, helping the 8-year-old startup surpass what it says will be $6 billion in global contracts by the end of this year.

The company is currently in the early stages of building a nine-building megafactory in Ohio that will employ approximately 4,500 people on an area the size of 87 football fields. Called Arsenal I, the facility will use advanced manufacturing robots and other methods to make unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles, mini fighter jets and other products.

“We’re going through an era where we have to produce relatively small numbers of very, very expensive high-end things,” Schimpf said. “We’re entering an era where how we can have things at scale, smarter and more autonomous is much more important.”

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