Anduril Founder Luckey: U.S.-China AI Gap Is Extremely Small, China's Deployment Speed Far Exceeds U.S.

Gate News Report, March 19 — Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril Industries, recently warned in an Axios Show interview that the United States’ lead in AI competition is “extremely narrow.” Luckey stated that China is “doing very well” in distilling American models and leveraging open-source AI achievements, rapidly deploying AI across government and industry sectors. He admitted that China has a “structural advantage” in pushing AI into practical applications and is maximizing these advantages at a faster pace than the U.S. He cited the U.S. federal government as an example: the Department of Defense is the most advanced in AI application, currently “massively and effectively” using AI in Iran operations, while other departments like Agriculture and Education lag far behind. The interview covered multiple topics. Anduril’s 5 million square foot weapons manufacturing plant, Arsenal-1, located in Ohio, will be operational within weeks, ahead of the original schedule. When asked about Anthropic being listed as a supply chain risk by the Pentagon, he supported the Department of Defense’s tough stance, saying private sector executives should not have greater military decision-making power than the U.S. President. He also stated that the next battlefield is underground space, followed by the Moon. Founded by Oculus creator Luckey in 2017, Anduril has become one of the Pentagon’s most relied-upon next-generation defense contractors. The company recently secured a $20 billion enterprise procurement framework contract with the U.S. Army, covering the AI command and control platform Lattice, along with supporting hardware, data infrastructure, and technical support. The first order worth $87 million is for counter-drone command and control.