Reshoring and New Factories: Latest Plant Announcements in North America

October 21, 2026 | ATN Trade & Finance

The October factory announcement calendar has been dominated by defense shipbuilding, AI server infrastructure, pharmaceutical campuses, and energy grid manufacturing — a mix that reflects both security-driven and tariff-driven reshoring rather than a single policy catalyst. Here are the largest announcements from the past three weeks.

Defense: Anduril's $3.7 Billion Shipyard at Tradepoint Atlantic

The largest single announcement of the month came on October 6: Anduril Industries confirmed a $3.7 billion investment in Baltimore County, Maryland, to build "Arsenal-2" — a shipyard at the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial campus dedicated to manufacturing Virginia-class submarine components. The facility is expected to create more than 3,100 direct jobs. The investment is part of a broader push to expand domestic defense industrial capacity that has accelerated since 2024 and reflects Pentagon concern about production throughput for undersea platforms.

Aerospace: Blue Origin's $555 Million TeraWave Factory in Texas

On October 8, Blue Origin announced a $554.78 million facility in Hutto, Texas, to manufacture satellite communications hardware for its TeraWave network — a broadband constellation in direct competition with Starlink. The plant is projected to add more than 2,000 jobs over 10 years. Texas has now absorbed four of the top twelve investment announcements tracked by Industrial Sage's US manufacturing investment tracker in October and September.

Pharma: Bayer's $2.2 Billion Ohio Campus

Bayer announced on October 2 a $2.2 billion modular pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in New Albany, Ohio, targeting oncology, cardiovascular, and renal products, with approximately 600 jobs. The investment follows a cluster of large foreign pharma commitments to US manufacturing that includes Roche ($50 billion, announced earlier in 2026), Novartis ($23 billion over five years across ten US facilities), and UCB ($2 billion in Georgia for biologics manufacturing). The common driver: the administration's 100% tariff on patented pharmaceuticals imported into the US, which has made domestic production economically necessary for global drug makers serving the American market.

Energy Grid: Southwire, Nucor, and Okonite

Three announcements in the past three weeks address the same bottleneck — the electrical infrastructure needed to power AI data centers and grid expansion. Southwire is investing $256 million in Starkville, Mississippi, for copper wire jacketing for data-center and grid connections (~128 jobs, October 1). Nucor is adding $105 million to its Crawfordsville, Indiana, towers and structures plant to increase output of utility poles and transmission structures (~100 jobs, October 8). Okonite Company broke ground earlier in September on a $400 million cable and wire manufacturing facility in Orangeburg County, South Carolina. All three serve the same underlying demand: the US needs tens of thousands of miles of new wire and cable to connect the AI data-center buildout to the grid.

Automotive and Batteries: Caterpillar, Ultium Cells, Pirelli

Caterpillar opened a $1 billion facility in Sanford, North Carolina, expanding production of compact track loaders and telehandlers — heavy equipment in heavy demand from infrastructure and construction activity. Ultium Cells (the GM/LG Energy Solution joint venture) committed $1 billion to retrofit its Spring Hill, Tennessee, battery plant for prismatic lithium manganese-rich cells (~500 jobs, September 30) — a technology upgrade aimed at cost reduction in EV battery packs. Italian tiremaker Pirelli is building a $1.2 billion plant in Rome, Georgia, its first major US production facility.

Trucks: Daimler Truck North America Plans America's Largest Truck Plant

Daimler Truck North America confirmed it is evaluating US sites for what CEO John O'Leary described as the largest truck plant in the country once complete. The plant will build complete vocational and on-highway trucks and will be designed to support autonomous and zero-emission vehicle production. Site selection is ongoing; construction is targeted to begin by end of 2026, with production scheduled for late 2029. Employment is expected to be "in the thousands."

AI Electronics Cluster: Texas Leads

Texas accounts for roughly three-quarters of disclosed investment in the AI server manufacturing cluster that has emerged this year. Wiwynn has committed more than $1.6 billion cumulatively to a server production and rack integration facility in Socorro (El Paso County), with the first building already in mass production. LITEON is fitting out a $919 million, 650,000-square-foot facility in McKinney for AI power systems, targeting 600 jobs.

Canada: Hitachi Energy's C$479 Million Transformer Factory in Ontario

North of the border, Hitachi Energy announced a C$479 million (~US$330 million+) investment in London, Ontario, to build a transformer insulation factory — part of its insulation and components business. The facility serves the same grid infrastructure demand driving US wire and cable investments and positions Canada within the North American grid buildout supply chain at the component level.

What this means: The October announcements reveal a reshoring wave that is sector-specific and demand-driven rather than broadly distributed. Defense (Anduril), pharma (Bayer, Roche, Novartis, UCB), and AI electronics (Wiwynn, LITEON, Blue Origin) are each responding to distinct policy or market signals — DoD procurement mandates, import tariffs, and hyperscaler capex respectively. The energy infrastructure cluster (Southwire, Okonite, Nucor) is the least headline-grabbing but arguably the most durable: AI data-center demand has created a structural, multi-year undersupply of domestic copper wire, cable, and grid components that cannot be filled quickly. For supply chain professionals, these announcements define where North American labor and industrial real estate demand will concentrate through the end of the decade.

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Reshoring and New Factories: Latest Plant Announcements in North America

Reshoring and New Factories: Latest Plant Announcements in North America

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