The US Army has awarded Anduril Industries a 10-year enterprise contract with a ceiling value of up to $20 billion, in a move that underlines the Pentagon’s growing reliance on commercial software, autonomous systems and integrated battlefield networks.

The agreement, announced on 13 March, is structured around a five-year base period with an optional five-year extension and is intended to consolidate procurement of Anduril’s commercially available technologies under a single contractual framework.

According to the Army, the new arrangement is designed to replace a fragmented system under which more than 120 separate procurement actions had previously been used to buy Anduril products and services. Officials said the enterprise model would reduce administrative costs, remove pass-through subcontracting charges, shorten procurement timelines and speed the delivery of software platforms, integrated hardware, data infrastructure and support services to operational units. The Army also stressed that the $20 billion figure represents a maximum potential value rather than money already committed.

The award is another indication of how rapidly software has moved to the centre of military planning. Gabe Chiulli, chief technology officer for the Office of the Chief Information Officer, said the “modern battlefield is increasingly defined by software” and argued that the Army needed to acquire and deploy software capabilities with greater speed and efficiency. Brigadier General Matt Ross, director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401, said the contract would help establish a common framework for counter-uncrewed aircraft interoperability and provide a foundational command-and-control capability for homeland defence and wider interagency operations.

For Anduril, the agreement marks another step in its rise from venture-backed start-up to major defence supplier. The company was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey and has built its business around autonomous systems, artificial intelligence and software-defined defence products. Its best-known software platform, Lattice, is designed to fuse data from sensors and autonomous assets into a single operating picture and to support command-and-control functions across military missions. Anduril says the system is intended to integrate autonomous teams and provide operators with a real-time understanding of the battlefield.

Among the systems most closely associated with Anduril is Roadrunner, a vertical take-off and landing autonomous air vehicle intended for counter-drone and air-defence missions. The company describes it as a reusable platform with twin turbojet engines and modular payloads, capable of launching rapidly and returning for recovery if it is not expended. That concept has attracted attention because it reflects a broader shift in Western defence procurement towards cheaper, more adaptable autonomous interceptors that can be deployed at scale against drones and other airborne threats.

Anduril’s ALTIUS family has also become central to its pitch to the US military and allied customers. The company says these systems can be launched from land, air or sea and configured for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting missions, as well as for loitering munition roles. The ALTIUS-M variants are marketed as autonomous strike systems, while other versions are intended for communications relay, electronic warfare and decoy functions. This emphasis on multi-mission, software-adaptable systems helps explain why the Army sees value in a contract that combines hardware, software and support under one mechanism.

The deal also comes as Anduril continues to win a larger place in high-priority Pentagon programmes once dominated by long-established contractors. In April 2024, the US Air Force selected Anduril and General Atomics to continue in the next phase of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme, aimed at developing autonomous aircraft to operate alongside crewed fighters. In early 2025, the Air Force assigned Anduril’s design the mission designation YFQ-44A, confirming its place in one of Washington’s most closely watched next-generation airpower projects.

What distinguishes Anduril from traditional defence primes is not only the technology it builds, but the business model behind it. The company has repeatedly argued that it develops systems with its own capital and then offers finished or near-finished products to government customers, rather than waiting for the lengthy, specification-heavy procurement cycles typical of major legacy programmes. That Silicon Valley approach has appealed to defence officials seeking faster acquisition and shorter timelines between prototype, production and deployment.

The Army, for its part, has sought to present the agreement as an instrument of efficiency rather than exclusivity. Its statement said the contract would not replace future competition for new programmes and that the service would continue to assess emerging technologies from across industry. Even so, the scale of the Anduril award shows how far the Pentagon has moved towards treating software, autonomy and data integration not as supporting tools, but as core combat capability.