Anduril and Qualcomm unveil BlueChip, a line of rugged laptops designed and assembled in the US

On October 27, defense tech company Anduril and Qualcomm unveiled BlueChip, a product line starting with a laptop designed and assembled in the US. It targets government, defense, first responders and public safety. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Series provides the core computing, including general-purpose processing, graphics and on-device AI. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said the chips will be made at TSMC’s facility in Arizona. Anduril has functional prototypes and plans to begin taking orders in 2027.

Anduril says components from US and allied-country suppliers account for more than 90% of the prototypes’ component procurement cost, with the long-term goal of a fully domestic supply chain. Circuit board assembly is planned for Anduril’s Arsenal-1 facility in Ohio. Founder Palmer Luckey told TechCrunch that the display is one of several components made only in China today, though he has found a US supplier for the cover glass. According to DefenseScoop, Luckey declined to share production targets and said full-rate production will start next year. He said there are no government subsidies or contracts so far, and the companies are using their own R&D money.

Luckey said the hardened laptop will be heavy and have battery-life constraints because of the engineering needed to withstand rough conditions. Pricing has not been announced, but he estimates it will cost about 20% more than typical high-end PCs. The Arm-based machine currently runs Windows and two Linux distributions popular with the US military, and Anduril’s Lattice command-and-control software has been integrated. TechCrunch puts the rugged computer market at about $5 billion.