Palmer Luckey, the inventor of the Oculus VR headset, is flirting with the idea of developing American-made computers.
He floated the idea during last week’s Reindustrialize Summit in Detroit before asking people on X whether they would “buy a Made In America computer from Anduril for 20% more than Chinese-manufactured options from Apple?” (As of this writing, about 64% have said yes.)
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Anduril, founded by Luckey in 2017, has been developing military technology for the US government, including surveillance towers for the US-Mexico border and drones for the Ukrainian military. “I actually think Anduril could build computers in the United States,” Luckey said at the Detroit summit while talking through a humanoid robot of all things.
“I’ve looked into it very, very deeply,” he added. “I’ve had conversations with everyone you would need to have to do this. Both on the chip side, on the assembly side, the manufacturing side. I know exactly how to do it. What it would cost. How long it would take.”
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Still, Luckey indicated he’s reluctant to pursue the idea. “I think there’s a chance that it’s going to be Anduril —unless somebody else does it first, which I would be perfectly happy with,” he said, later adding: “This is something I would rather let other people do.”
The Trump administration has been imposing tariffs on Asian countries, including China, where much of today’s PC component manufacturing happens. The tariffs threaten to raise prices for many consumer electronics. However, Luckey has supported Trump’s tariffs, which are designed to help revive domestic manufacturing in the US.
“If we can’t make the things that we need to maintain our quality of life, then we are actually just subservient to our adversaries,” Luckey said in April, although he expects reviving such manufacturing to take decades.
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Luckey didn’t say how he arrived at the 20% figure for an American-made PC. Developing and making one here would be a costly undertaking since it would require setting up numerous factories in the US devoted to building all the various components of a PC, including the motherboard, graphics cards, and cases.
Still, the leading semiconductor manufacturer, Taiwan’s TSMC, is preparing to build six new fabs in Arizona. Its customers include Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. Meanwhile, other critics say they’ll continue buying from Apple, citing Anduril’s controversial business with the US government on defense technologies.
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About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
