Anduril and Qualcomm unveil BlueChip, a rugged laptop with about 90% of components from the US or allied countries

Anduril and Qualcomm announced BlueChip, a new US-made computer with which Anduril founder Palmer Luckey promises to bring computer manufacturing back to the country. According to TechCrunch, he means not just assembly but the manufacturing of every individual component, some of which are currently produced exclusively in China. BlueChip will be available for reservation in 2027.

The first product will be a hardened laptop, designed to withstand very harsh physical environments and meet the security needs of the military, government agencies, emergency services and law enforcement. Technical details are scarce: according to Luckey, Anduril has not even finished contracting all of its component suppliers.

In this first generation, around 90% of the components will come from the US or allied countries, according to Anduril. The most notable is the CPU: a Snapdragon X Series chip made at TSMC's huge new plant in Arizona. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said at the press conference that it uses the same architecture as other laptops, such as the Microsoft Surface. Luckey said there is a technical roadmap to eventually reach 100% domestic components, including displays, metals and magnetic components. For now, he said, he has found a US supplier for the glass covering the screen, but the display itself is one of the components made only in China.

This first machine is not aimed at general consumers. Because it is a hardened laptop, it will be heavy and have battery limitations due to the engineering needed to withstand rain, dust and adverse conditions. Even so, consumers will be able to order it, and the company may open a waitlist. The main selling point is offering US government agencies a product that complies with regulations requiring them to buy US-made computers, with a transparent supply chain that can be traced and audited. Luckey described it as the "anti-surveillance computer": the user knows every hardware component and every piece of software running on it.

Anduril is also working to make this Arm-based machine run well with Windows applications, with those on certain Linux distributions used by the government, and even with very old software that some agencies still use.

There is no price yet, but Luckey estimates it will cost roughly 20% more than a typical high-end PC. He himself admitted that a purely rational consumer, without patriotic motivation, would be better off buying a Dell laptop because it is cheaper.

Luckey is confident that, over time, Anduril will bring US-made laptops closer to what consumers want. He presents BlueChip as the first in a future full lineup and recalled that he began his career building virtual reality headsets for consumers. On the risk of trying to take on China's electronic components industry on his own, he joked about his internal reputation as "crazy" for his big ideas (he admits to having pushed his board to spend $900 million on a factory for a jet aircraft before winning a contract), but said that in this case his investors do not consider it crazy. The rugged computer market is already worth around $5 billion.