ARX Robotics expands to Britain: headquarters in London, production planned in South West England

With a headquarters in London and a planned production and development centre in South West England, ARX Robotics is expanding to Britain, the company announced today. According to its latest press release, ARX is thereby taking “a decisive step towards strengthening European defence autonomy”.

According to the company, the expansion is “part of ARX's long-term mission to strengthen European defence capability through technological independence and to grow as a leading provider of unmanned ground systems in Europe”.

According to ARX, its modular unmanned systems are already in service with the Bundeswehr, on NATO's eastern flank and on a large scale in Ukraine.

ARX Robotics plans 90 jobs in the United Kingdom

Investments of a good 50 million euros are earmarked for building the British production and research site. A total of 90 jobs are to be created there within the next 30 months; in doing so, ARX draws on its previous scaling in Germany and in countries of deployment such as Ukraine. The new plant is to be able to produce up to 1,800 vehicles a year.

CEO Marc Wietfeld commented on the new site:

“By setting up a production facility in Britain, we are not only making an economic contribution but also strengthening the technological sovereignty of both the United Kingdom and Europe.
The United Kingdom is a key player in the European security architecture and one of the European Union's closest partners.”— Marc Wietfeld, CEO of ARX Robotics

He outlined the next steps as follows:

“Building on our engagement in Germany and Ukraine, our focus now is on securing Europe-wide resilience and capacity to act through modern technologies, autonomous systems and digital battle management.”— Marc Wietfeld, CEO of ARX Robotics

John Healey, the United Kingdom's Defence Secretary, also responded positively in a recent statement:

“ARX stands for modern defence technology. I very much welcome the investment – it creates high-quality jobs and at the same time strengthens Europe's security. With our goal of investing a total of 2.5 per cent of GDP in defence from 2027, we are building Britain into an industrial defence power – and relying on innovation, partnership and industrial strength.”— John Healey, UK Defence Secretary

The British Armed Forces are currently testing ARX's unmanned ground vehicles. The company describes the project as follows: “The aim is to tailor the systems precisely to the operational requirements of the British Army – in line with the declared intention of significantly increasing combat power through modern technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence”.

The British team is led by David Roberts as CEO; Nick Bowler heads British Mission Operations. Roberts, CEO of ARX UK, said:

“I am delighted to be leading ARX's expansion in Britain. Our systems not only give the British Armed Forces an immediately deployable capability edge but also form an open integration platform – together with British technology partners in the fields of sensors, effectors and operational tactics. With Mithra OS as the digital backbone, we are bringing scalable autonomy not only to our own vehicles but also to existing combat vehicles.”— David Roberts, CEO ARX UK

On behalf of the NATO Innovation Fund, Chief Adoption Officer John Ridge commented:

“We are proud to support ARX Robotics as one of Europe's most advanced companies in the field of autonomous systems. Their unmanned vehicles will play a key role on future battlefields. We are particularly impressed by ARX's willingness to expand industrial capacity across Europe – for more resilient supply chains and a greater ability for NATO to scale up production in an emergency. We are accompanying ARX very closely on this strategic path.”— John Ridge, Chief Adoption Officer, NATO Innovation Fund