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American entrepreneur and founder of Anduril Industries, Palmer Luckey has blasted anti-domestic manufacturing analysts as he advocates for a new initiative to completely manufacture computers in the US.
The virtual reality developer made the comments during a recent interview with Bloomberg Tech.
Anduril recently announced plans with San Diego’s Qualcomm Technologies for a ‘BlueChip’ completely US-built laptop powered by Snapdragon X Series platform. The company has announced no exact pricing or delivery timelines, however it’s understood that early prototyping is currently taking place with orders and BlueChip production expected next year
BlueChip laptops will reportedly be manufactured in the United States, with circuit board assembly planned for Anduril's Arsenal-1 facility in Ohio.
“We’re getting into computers because America invented the computer industry. We perfected it, and then we shipped it overseas,” Luckey said.
“And that might make sense from an economic perspective, but think about the things that I'm working on. Think about the things that the military is working on. Think about critical industries like, you know, medical hospitals, power plants.
“There’s a lot of people who are building stuff running on Chinese made computers, and I think it’s crazy to have an entire country depend entirely on its largest strategic adversary for its most critical economic powerhouses.
“Anduril didn’t actually set out originally to build American computers because we wanted to. We tried to get other people to do it. We tried to get them to invest in this because I can’t be in the business of selling autonomous weapons that are controlled by Chinese equipment.
“And we weren’t able to make it happen, so we decided this is something that we were going to have to invest in. We’re going to bring silicon back to the valley.
“We’re going to work with the best companies in the United States to build a computer that’s not just designed here, not just even assembled here, but actually made in the United States. Everything from the chips to the glass to the metals to the batteries to the plastics, everything.”
Luckey Takes Aim At Anti-Manufacturing Analysts
Luckey also blasted the opinions of so-called ‘anti-domestic manufacturing’ analysts.
“One of the problems with all these analysts that are telling you that it's going cost $37,000 to build an American iPhone or a $100,000 to buy an American computer. They're trying to prop up a status quo that the mega corporations want to keep going,” he said.
“They want to outsource everything. They want to hire cheaper non-American labor, and they are willing to say and do anything to convince you that it can't be fixed, that it can't come back, (and) that America is this helpless, neutered, post relevant empire, and it is just not the case.
“How do I know that? Because I have to make stuff in America every day because I work in the defence industry.
“The stuff that Anduril makes every day is not actually that different from a computer. My drones are basically computers. They have memory, a GPU, a CPU, sensors, batteries, you know, a rugged integration.
“The only difference between an Anduril attack drone and a laptop is a keyboard and a screen, And that is not that hard to figure out, especially for a guy like me who started Oculus and comes from the consumer electronics space.
“We’re not going to let people lie about what America can and can’t do anymore. We’re just gonna do it.
“I’m personally sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party. Anduril is sanctioned too. So, we’ve had to develop a life independent of China in a way that most American companies say they cannot, but in reality, just don’t want to do… Learning how to build these advanced systems without a reliance on our foreign adversaries, that’s why I’m so confident… (that this is) doable.”
Value Chain
Luckey also highlighted that there would be ongoing challenges under the plan, including as-yet-unresolved manufacturing of displays.
“It’s really tough. We’ve been working on this for years and there’s so many things where (America) we’ve sent them overseas.
“One of the problems with the US subsidies and investments in semiconductors is that at the end of the day, we don’t have any ability to package them and then turn them, transform them into useful products.
“From a certain point of view, American semiconductor subsidies have really just been a subsidy of Chinese made laptops, of Chinese made computers, because that’s where they go to actually get turned into products.
“We want to make sure that America’s capturing that entire value chain here, and it’s really tough. We’re working with suppliers who either have never been in the computer industry or they haven’t been in the computer industry for twenty years now when the last US plant shut down after the elites sold us out and sent everything overseas.”
Mid-Term Elections
Luckey also elaborated on recent mid-term elections in America and their impact on defence spending.
“I think that even with a blue wave, you’re not necessarily going to see a huge change in defence spending,” he said.
“I talked to Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats who are in control of the budget, Democrats who are in control of defence they understand that we’re in a really unique period in time.
“They understand that the world that we’re in does need investment to replace some of these legacy systems and that we’re facing a very near-term threat.
“It’s not just the US recognising that… Japan is now talking about how they need to engage with no taboos with the idea that they can amend their constitution so that Japan is able to host nuclear weapons.
“We are living in a world where everything is on the table… As of right now, I think most people on the red and the blue side agree that America needs to be investing in new technology.”
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