Home-ORNL and ARC Launch AI Foundry to Enhance the US Defense Supply Chain
Oak Ridge National Laboratoryand New York-based startupAutonomous Resource Corporationhave formalized a Memorandum of Understanding to establish what they are calling the Exascale Foundry, a closed-loop system designed to bring AI-enabled manufacturing qualification and autonomous production to U.S. national security applications.
The partnership pairs ORNL’s computational muscle and advanced manufacturing infrastructure with ARC’s ARCNet distributed production platform, creating an integrated pipeline from materials simulation to finished parts.
“The United States faces an urgent need to rebuild its manufacturing capacity for critical defense components,” said Bryan Wisk, CEO of ARC. “By combining ORNL’s world-leading computational, materials science, and manufacturing capabilities with our autonomous production infrastructure, we can compress manufacturing and qualification timelines from years to months and deliver manufactured parts at the volumes the warfighter needs.”
Under the agreement, ARC will deploy advanced manufacturing equipment across seven production nodes connected to ORNL through its secure ARCNet infrastructure. ORNL will contribute access to its high-performance computing resources for simulation-driven materials characterization, along with technologies developed at its Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, the Department of Energy’s only large-scale, open-access advanced manufacturing facility.
A key element of the integration is ORNL’s Peregrine AI software, which has analyzed over 1.9 million additive manufacturing layers and will be embedded into ARC’s production nodes for real-time adaptive control and quality assurance. The initial focus will be on high-temperature nickel superalloy turbine components for autonomous air vehicle engines, produced using metal binder jetting, targeting one of the more acute bottlenecks in the current U.S. defense supply chain.
“ORNL’s advanced manufacturing and computing capabilities are uniquely positioned to help accelerate the transition of laboratory-proven technologies into production-scale defense manufacturing,” said Moe Khaleel, ORNL associate laboratory director for National Security Sciences. “Partnering with ARC ensures we are transitioning our research into real production outcomes.”
Plugging Into a National Strategy
The Exascale Foundry also connects to a broader federal initiative. The partnership supports DOE’s Genesis Mission, a national program aimed at building the world’s most powerful scientific platform to advance discovery, strengthen national security, and drive energy innovation. For ORNL, the collaboration represents a deliberate move to bridge the gap between research capability and real production outcomes.
“This partnership exemplifies the type of relationship necessary to build and grow domestic supply chains for our national security,” said ORNL Chief Manufacturing Officer Craig Blue.
Source: 3D Printing Industry
