Blacksburg Builds A Magnet Plant

Happy Thursday.

The build this week: USA Rare Earth has broken ground on a $1.2 billion rare-earth metal and magnet plant in Blacksburg, South Carolina.

Underneath: a new missile factory, 191,000 square feet of counter-drone production, retrofit autonomy for subsea robots, and fresh capital for factory and chip startups.

The Lead

USA Rare Earth broke ground Wednesday on a $1.2 billion rare-earth metal and magnet plant in Blacksburg, South Carolina. The company plans an approximately 800,000-square-foot facility on 124 acres at Bailey Industrial Park and expects to create about 490 manufacturing jobs.

At full scale, the plant is designed to produce 6,400 metric tons of sintered neodymium-iron-boron magnets and 5,000 metric tons of strip-cast rare-earth metal and alloy each year. Those materials feed motors, actuators, generators and other compact systems where strength, weight and heat performance matter.

Strip-cast alloy becomes feedstock for magnet powder, pressing, sintering, finishing and qualification. Building those steps as one production system shortens the distance between rare-earth metal and a component a defense, automotive or industrial customer can actually buy.

Blacksburg won a search that considered roughly 275 sites. USA Rare Earth cited the Upstate's workforce, power, transportation and public partners, and it committed $250,000 to Spartanburg Community College's SPARK Center for workforce development. The project also brings Clark and Frampton, Trammell Crow, McMillan Pazdan Smith and Chang Robotics into the build.

Commissioning is targeted for 2028, and the annual output figures remain full-scale goals that depend on construction, equipment installation, process yield, hiring and customer qualification.If those gates clear, South Carolina gains a large domestic link between rare-earth metal and finished magnets. Blacksburg's advantage is the chance to train the workforce, run the conversion steps and qualify customer parts around one plant instead of stitching the chain together across separate sites.

Defense & Space

• Covenant opened a 105,000-square-foot Texas missile factory as it emerged from stealth with more than $250 million raised and signed contracts for its Anthem system.

• Allen Control Systems is expanding Bullfrog counter-drone production across 191,000 square feet in Austin while adding a Silicon Valley engineering office.

• Northrop Grumman received a $4.84 billion Common Infrared Countermeasure production vehicle running through 2035.

• Four U.S. forging and machining companies received a shared $149 million production vehicle for large penetrator warhead case assemblies in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

• Conti Federal received a $74.8 million construction award for a B-21 radio-frequency and measurements hangar at Whiteman Air Force Base.

• Kratos flew its ARAV-B ballistic missile target successfully during the multinational Pacific Dragon 2026 exercise.

Maritime & Shipbuilding

• Nauticus Robotics commercially released its ToolKITT autonomy retrofit for existing ROV fleets after reporting greater than 20% operating-efficiency improvement in customer work.

• Marine Ventures International received a $65 million Navy contract to operate, maintain and repair the MV Independence through 2032.

• IrvinGQ received a $14.7 million production option for MK-59 floating decoy systems with work in North Dakota and Connecticut.

• Sceye completed a 30-day, nearly 30,000-kilometer stratospheric flight that demonstrated direct-to-device links, drone communications and edge computing over Japan.

Semiconductors & Electronics

• GlobalFoundries and Monolithic Power Systems formed a long-term 300mm manufacturing partnership with production volumes planned for early 2027.

• Analog Devices agreed to acquire Alif Semiconductor, adding edge AI microcontrollers and related production silicon.

• Celero Communications raised a $275 million Series C for digital signal processors used in AI infrastructure.

• Besxar plans to test orbital semiconductor-factory prototypes on 12 SpaceX launches as it works toward producing advanced materials in microgravity.

Manufacturing & Automation

• Harmoni raised a $10 million Series A and launched a factory-orchestration product for frontline operations.

• KraftPal launched a semi-automatic pallet-production machine intended to speed deployments across its licensing network.

• CBS ArcSafe introduced a remote racking system for Toshiba VY circuit breakers that keeps operators outside the live arc-flash boundary.

• Peckham Vocational Industries received an $11.6 million five-year contract to manufacture cold-weather caps for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

• Carolina Water Service completed $8 million in upgrades at its Fairfield Harbour wastewater treatment plant.

Energy & Materials

• West Virginia signed an agreement to become the sixth state in DOE's Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus process, opening negotiations over fuel-cycle infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and workforce development.

• Milford Mining secured a $25 million USDA-backed loan for its Utah critical-minerals production program.

• Albuquerque completed an eight-site, 6-megawatt solar program across municipal facilities.

• FGR and Pacific Urethanes booked an initial production order for a graphene-enhanced mining fire-retardant application.

• Hycroft Mining reported higher-grade extensions at its Vortex and Brimstone targets in Nevada.

• New Jersey American Water put a program covering more than $1.4 billion of upgrades into new rates.

• The Department of Energy selected four domestic mining-technology testbeds for $73 million across Colorado, Virginia, Arizona, Missouri and Texas.

Supply Chain & Freight

• Creation Gardens received a five-year contract with a $496.8 million maximum for fresh-food distribution to military and Agriculture Department customers in Illinois.

• Woodpack Global launched a crate-design system that turns freight constraints into repeatable industrial packaging specifications.

• Northern Tool + Equipment started a student truck-build challenge with Flandreau Indian School's career and technical education program.

Dealbook

• Covenant reported more than $250 million raised across three rounds.

• Celero Communications raised a $275 million Series C.

• Cerberus agreed to acquire substantial Goodwin defense assets for £1.1 billion.

• Analog Devices agreed to acquire Alif Semiconductor.

• Unusual Machines invested another $20 million in XTEND AI Robotics, bringing its total investment to $27.5 million.

• Milford Mining secured a $25 million USDA-backed loan.

• Harmoni raised a $10 million Series A.

• Copilot Capital acquired a majority stake in Green Eagle Solutions.

• HOF Capital completed its purchases of Porsche's stakes in Rimac Group and Bugatti Rimac at a value of around €1 billion.

• Apax Partners acquired NextGen Security from Dunes Point Capital.

Back Tuesday.