Anduril says BlueChip laptop will meet Buy American's 65% threshold at 2027 launch

Anduril now says the first laptop from its partnership with Qualcomm will exceed the US government's 65 percent domestic-content threshold when it launches in 2027 — a commitment the defense contractor pointedly declined to make just days earlier, according to The Verge.

A number that changed within days

The two companies announced this week that they will build laptops entirely in the United States, starting with a single model in 2027, alongside a long-term goal of pushing the computer industry toward a fully domestic supply chain. When The Verge pressed Anduril founder Palmer Luckey on a call with reporters about what percentage of the first laptop's components would actually be US-made, his answer was "TBD." Luckey pointed to open questions about when memory and processor fabs would come online and whether a display production line could be established domestically, saying the first shipped product would most likely be a blend of US and allied-country content rather than fully American.

A follow-up email made the gap more concrete. Anduril spokesperson Stephanie Davis told The Verge that the current prototype is approximately 32 percent US-origin by component procurement cost, with more than 90 percent sourced from the US and allied countries combined, and that the company could not confirm whether the final product would land above or below 65 percent.

In a subsequent statement, Anduril communications VP Shannon Prior reversed that position, telling The Verge the earlier response was incorrect and that the BlueChip laptop is being developed to exceed the 65 percent threshold at launch in 2027. She said the precise percentage is still being determined as suppliers are finalized and prototypes refined.

Why 65 percent matters

The Buy American Act dates to 1933, but as The Verge notes, it was updated during the Biden administration to require that at least 65 percent of a product's cost originate domestically for the product to count as domestic. That bar rises to 75 percent in 2029. Federal agencies generally cannot buy products below the threshold without a waiver — and Luckey argued on the call that government computer purchases are currently happening under such waivers en masse.

The technical plan

Luckey told journalists that Anduril has a "technical roadmap to get to 100 percent domestic" over time. Concrete steps already in motion, according to The Verge's reporting, include a US glassmaker lined up for the laptop's cover glass, a US-made frame around the display, field-programmable gate arrays programmed to stand in for power management chips and other circuits Anduril cannot normally source outside China, and US-made batteries under development. The enclosure is designed for US machining, and the laptop will use metals that US industry can produce and machine at scale. The Snapdragon processor will be manufactured at TSMC's Arizona facility, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told The Verge.

Reasons for caution

The Verge draws attention to the press release's wording: the first laptop will be "designed and assembled" in the United States, not necessarily manufactured there — the same distinction that became a sticking point in the publication's recent questioning of router maker TP-Link. No major US computer company, including Apple, Dell, HP and Microsoft, currently builds its laptops in the US, and the outlet notes a history of companies strategically assembling products to appease politicians, promising jobs that never materialized, or misrepresenting domestic production to the government. Luckey was not available for a follow-up interview about how Anduril would reach the 65 percent figure.

Why it matters

If Anduril holds to the commitment, its 2027 laptop could become a computer that government agencies can buy without a Buy American waiver — a meaningful shift in federal procurement, where domestic-sourcing requirements currently coexist with hardware that cannot meet them. It would also be an early test of whether US chip fabs, glass production, batteries and machining can be stitched into a laptop supply chain at all. And with the threshold climbing to 75 percent in 2029, Anduril's 100 percent roadmap is less an aspiration than a moving target it will have to keep chasing.