Defense giant Anduril is quietly building autonomous warships on Seattle’s historic ship canal

There was no noticeable activity at the old Foss Shipyard in Seattle when I visited last week. No signs, and no visible presence of any workers. Behind the barbed-wire fencing, it looked like a ghost shipyard: rusting siding, fading Foss logos and old marine equipment.

But a person on site confirmed that the facility’s new tenant — defense giant Anduril Industries — was up and running, even if the top brass was nowhere in sight on a quiet Friday.

With little fanfare and no attention from local press, Anduril said last fall that it had spent tens of millions of dollars to revamp the historic Seattle shipyard, tucked along the southern side of the Lake Washington Ship Canal just west of Seattle Pacific University.

As you can see from the photo above, it’s a short aerial drone flight from GeekWire’s Fremont headquarters — hidden in plain sight yet quietly signaling the city’s emerging role in the next wave of naval technology.

Anduril calls what it’s building in Seattle a new class of dual-use autonomous surface vessels.

In non-military speak, that translates to drone warships.

Over the past week, I’ve been looking into this defense manufacturing powerhouse and its presence along the ship canal. But it’s actually not the story I started chasing. Here’s the reporting journey that led me to Anduril’s drone shipyard, and what I discovered in the process.

A strange oversight

My curiosity about this industry was piqued when news broke last week that Austin-based Saronic Technologies had raised $1.75 billion and was scouting sites for a next-generation shipyard focused on autonomous naval vessels and AI-driven maritime technologies.

Washington state is a maritime powerhouse, with deep ports, a skilled technical workforce and one of the largest concentrations of U.S. Navy personnel in the country. It’s also a leader in artificial intelligence. That led me to ask whether Washington state was being considered for the high-tech shipbuilding facility. 

At first glance, the state seemed to be entirely off Saronic’s radar.

Saronic — founded four years ago by former Navy SEAL Dino Mavrookas — is seriously considering Brownsville, Texas for its $3.2 billion shipbuilding facility. That makes sense given the proximity to the company’s landlocked headquarters in Austin and existing manufacturing facility in Louisiana, and the high-tech workforce near SpaceX’s operations on the Gulf Coast.

But Fast Company recently reported that Saronic — which calls its yet-to-be-launched, 180-foot self-navigating vessel the Marauder — was considering sites in Oregon, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina for its next-generation Port Alpha autonomous warship manufacturing facility. 

Basically, that means Saronic is considering every state on the continental west coast, except Washington, and nearly every state with coastline south of Maryland. The mayor of San Diego, where the company recently established a significant presence, even declared last Oct. 21 “Saronic Day” — a nifty political play to try to woo even more defense  jobs. 

In the press release announcing Saronic’s new funding, Mavrookas said it’s creating a “fundamentally new model of American shipbuilding” that integrates advanced manufacturing and software-driven production to deliver autonomous vessels at speed and scale.

A mashup of AI, defense and maritime fits perfectly for the Seattle area. It’s a region that helped birth the aviation and software industries, and is sandwiched between the freshwater Lake Washington and saltwater Puget Sound, with ready access to the Pacific Ocean. 

So as you might expect, when I reached out to economic development officials in Washington state last week, they were familiar with Saronic and its ambitious plans.

The 380-acre hurdle

Rebecca Lovell, the interim president and CEO of Greater Seattle Partners, said they received a request last summer from the Washington State Department of Commerce that appeared to match Saronic’s requirements for its so-called “Port Alpha” autonomous shipbuilding facility. 

Lovell, an economic development veteran, was blown away by the scale of the request. At 380 acres, the new port facility would span the equivalent of roughly 290 football fields. No available qualifying sites or facilities in King County would meet the demand, she said. 

“The query otherwise matches our criteria. It’s squarely in our key sectors,” Lovell said, citing factors including the wealth of talent in maritime and advanced manufacturing. She called the region a unique hub that brings together legacy industries and innovation.

Could Everett be an option? Just 30 miles north of Seattle, its deepwater port sits beside Naval Station Everett, and last year it hosted the launch of the experimental autonomous vessel USX-1 Defiant.

However, the Port of Everett and surrounding areas in Snohomish County simply did not have a big enough real estate footprint to meet the vast needs of Saronic’s Port Alpha project. 

Daniel Tappana, director of economic development for the Economic Alliance Snohomish County, said they received a confidential request via the Washington State Department of Commerce last year for a facility that had many characteristics of Saronic’s Port Alpha project. He could not say for certain whether it was Saronic, but the attributes of the proposal did seem to mirror what he’s read about the maker of autonomous warships. 

At more than 300 acres, Tappana said the confidential request was about six times bigger than anything Snohomish County could reasonably offer.

Saronic did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Commerce declined to answer specific questions posed by GeekWire. 

But in the process of trying to solve that riddle, I learned something else: another heavily funded builder of autonomous war machines had already planted its flag in the region.

Anduril’s drone shipyard

Anduril said in a Nov. 2025 press release that its Seattle facility will serve as the U.S. hub for vessel assembly, integration and testing of Autonomous Surface Vessels as part of the U.S. Navy’s Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program. 

The news was reported in trade publications like Breaking Defense and The Maritime Executive, with Anduril citing the historical legacy and innovation of Kaiser Shipyards and noting that the region provides “the ideal conditions to re-energize American shipbuilding and grow the maritime workforce.”

The U.S. Navy’s appetite for autonomous vessels is rapidly increasing, especially in light of the war in Iran. Drone warfare has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, spiking global oil prices and creating uncertainty in the global economy. 

A strong autonomous naval program is critical for the U.S. given the rapidly changing dynamics of warfare, with low-cost drones wreaking havoc on warships that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Anduril is positioned to benefit from this transformation. 

The U.S. Navy introduced a new rapid procurement program on March 26 — replacing the MASC autonomy program. The new effort is designed to more quickly test prototypes on the open water later this year, and then deploy the vessels by September 30, 2027.

That’s an extremely fast turnaround in defense circles, and speaks to the importance that the Navy is placing on launching autonomous systems on the open seas. It also means that Anduril will likely be very busy at its new Seattle manufacturing hub.

Anduril is clear on its mission when it comes to its new class of Seattle-built drone boats, constructed in a partnership with South Korea-based shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries.

“Traditional, manned warships cannot meet that demand alone,” the company said in its announcement last fall. “The Navy needs autonomous, modular vessels that can be produced at speed, deployed in volume, and upgraded continuously with iterative engineering, software updates, and new mission payloads to augment the manned fleet.”

Seattle’s Drone Canal?

Joshua Berger, the founder and CEO of Washington Maritime Blue, a non-profit alliance dedicated to supporting innovation and economic development in the maritime industry, has closely tracked Anduril’s redevelopment of the Foss Shipyard. He understands that dozens of defense workers are already building the next-generation autonomous vessels on the property.

Anduril’s facility is located in fresh water just east of the Ballard Bridge and Ballard Locks, an important sea route that connects Seattle’s historic maritime industry to the Puget Sound and Pacific Ocean.

“Part of what’s unique here is that you’ve got fresh water with access to salt water, which is significant for that kind of construction,” said Berger.

And the Anduril operation is not alone along the ship canal. 

A short hop away, Brinc — a heavily-funded drone manufacturer — is opening a 35,000 square foot facility in a former fish cannery at West Canal Yards. On the north side of the canal in the Fremont neighborhood, Snow & Company is building electric boats and components for a new class of vessels, holding contracts with the U.S. Navy.

In that regard, a mini “autonomous alley” appears to be emerging along the ship canal.

Signs for Kidder Matthews flank the Foss Shipyard, and the commercial real estate brokerage’s website indicates that three buildings totaling more than 50,000 square feet are available for lease. Jeff Loftus of Kidder Matthews declined to comment, and referred questions to Anduril.

An Anduril representative responded to my inquiry, but as of publication time, the company had not followed up on my request for more specific information.

“We sort of have the perfect storm,” said Berger, pointing to the region’s advanced manufacturing capabilities, prime marine acreage, a high-tech workforce with specialization in autonomous systems and relative proximity to key suppliers in Asia.

The company behind the project

Anduril Industries is led by the Hawaiian-shirt and sandal wearing Palmer Luckey, the 33-year-old creator of Oculus VR, whom the New York Times recently described as the “It Guy of the booming defense-technology industry.”

Anduril is a colorful (some say polarizing) startup in the buttoned-up world of defense. Lord of the Rings fans also will likely recognize the Anduril name as the reforged sword wielded by Aragorn and said to symbolize leadership, destiny and — interestingly in light of the U.S. shipbuilding industry — the reclaiming of lost glory.

The 9-year-old company has rapidly risen in the defense industry ranks. It is partnering with Boeing on a new missile defense system, and has won recent contracts with the U.S. Navy and Royal Australian Navy to develop long-range autonomous underwater vehicles with the goal of changing “the balance beneath the waves.”

Luckey is also a close confidante and respected force in the Trump administration. 

Axios reported last month that Anduril was raising a $4 billion round of financing at a $60 billion valuation. That’s more than Ford Motor Company and Alaska Airlines, combined.

A portion of Anduril’s vast capital resources are going towards its autonomous boat-building operations, including the facility in Seattle. Last summer, GeekWire reported that the company sublet 39,851 square feet of prime downtown Bellevue office space from Meta, bringing its headcount in the region at the time to about 375 people.

Anduril also is rapidly expanding its operations in California. And it is building a massive facility just south of Columbus, Ohio that it dubs Arsenal-1, described by the company as “the future of American defense manufacturing.”

Political crosscurrents

Revitalizing the nation’s battered shipbuilding industry is a key priority of the Trump administration. 

An executive order signed by President Trump last April was designed to counter shipbuilding gains by China, with a goal to “revitalize and rebuild domestic maritime industries and workforce to promote national security and economic prosperity.”

Of course, building autonomous warfighting machines in the heart of a progressive city like Seattle may come with its own set of political challenges.

But Maritime Blue’s Berger, for one, is hopeful that the region can navigate those thorny issues, especially as states such as Texas and Louisiana roll out huge economic incentives. And he’s excited by the innovation taking shape along the ship canal, tying the region’s maritime past to a new future.

“There’s still a lot of work to do to connect the tech, autonomy, climate and clean energy innovation ecosystem, with our legacy, traditional maritime sector,” Berger said. “But we’ve seen significant movement in the last five to 10 years.”