The 2025 NatSec100 reflects both geographic concentration and growing dispersion. The majority of companies remain anchored in California, New York, and Texas — a reflection of long-standing advantages in venture capital density, technical talent, and proximity to key customers and research institutions. These states continue to serve as hubs for dual-use innovation, housing roughly two-thirds of this year’s cohort.
Yet expansion beyond the coasts is accelerating. A new wave of NatSec100 companies are building manufacturing lines, engineering hubs, and R&D centers across the country — from the Southeast to the Midwest and Mountain West. These are not satellite offices; they are major investments.
This shift carries strategic and economic significance. As companies expand, they are drawing from a whole-of-U.S. workforce — skilled operators, engineers, technicians, and veterans who may be far from Silicon Valley but are central to America's industrial base. Geographic diversification helps de-risk the defense innovation ecosystem, strengthens national resilience, and ensures that the benefits of this new industrial wave are shared more broadly across the country.
In January 2025, Anduril announced plans to build Arsenal-1 Manufacturing Facility in Central Ohio. The facility will span over 500 acres and is expected to create over 4000 jobs by 2035. This initiative marks Ohio’s largest- ever job creation initiative, positioning the state, and the Midwest, as a hub in building America’s defense manufacturing base.
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States host a NatSec100 Company HQ
States host a NatSec100 Company Office
While geographic concentrations remain, NatSec100 companies are scaling nationwide — creating jobs and diversifying the defense industrial base.
Federal initiatives like the CHIPS and Science Act, DoD’s Microelectronics Commons, and regionally targeted SBIR programs are helping catalyze this footprint growth. But challenges remain: capital, talent pipelines, and DoD customer access are still unevenly distributed.
If the U.S. is to field a truly modern and resilient defense industrial base, the innovation pipeline must continue to stretch beyond traditional tech strongholds — activating the full spectrum of American talent and industrial capability in the process.
Many technologies take years to scale, but given the transformational potential of quantum computing, standing still is not an option. As nations spray the field with public funding, the United States should act decisively. Government investment isn’t just about accelerating innovation for commercial purposes—it’s about national security, economic resilience, and technological supremacy. Delays or half-measures put all three at risk. PsiQuantum is committed to unlocking the full potential of quantum computing by building this technology at scale, right here in the United States.
Jeremy O’Brien
CEO, PsiQuantum