Anduril Industries just added a helicopter to its lineup. An autonomous, strike-capable helicopter drone called Thunder, to be precise.
The company founded by Palmer Luckey in 2017 has been on an absolute tear, reaching a $61 billion valuation as of May 2026.
What Thunder actually is
Thunder is an autonomous helicopter strike drone built under what Anduril calls its “Autonomy For Attack Aviation” initiative. The drone runs on Anduril’s Lattice AI platform, which serves as the brain across the company’s autonomous systems, letting these drones make decisions in real time without a human babysitting every maneuver.
Production is happening at Arsenal-1, Anduril’s manufacturing facility in Ohio. The same facility began ramping up production of Fury drones back in March 2026. Thunder benefits from similar manufacturing infrastructure and software capabilities.
