Anduril Industries, a weapons manufacturer, is expected to make an announcement Tuesday regarding the company’s future at Tradepoint Atlantic in Sparrows Point. President Donald Trump is expected to attend, but other specifics have not yet been shared. Here’s what to know:

What is Anduril Industries?

In less than a decade, Anduril has become a major player in the military technology space, specializing in autonomous weapons — which can operate without human intervention. The Founders Fund, a venture capital firm backed by technology billionaire Peter Thiel, initially invested in Anduril.

The company, based in Southern California, has contracts with the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Customs and Border Protection. This year, Anduril was valued at $61 billion.

“The vast majority of our capital goes to scaling the factories, building out a production workforce, funding all that inventory and just getting that ramp to production working,” Brian Schimpf, the company’s CEO and co-founder, told Bloomberg earlier this year.

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Anduril’s founders

Palmer Luckey became a billionaire in 2014 when the then-21-year-old sold his Oculus VR, a virtual reality startup, to Facebook. The Hawaiian-shirt-wearing California native then founded Anduril in 2017. He’s also held several major fundraisers for Trump.

“I want to build the things that will scare the [expletive] out of our most dangerous enemies without bankrupting the United States in the process,” Luckey recently said, according to The New York Times.

He started Anduril with Schimpf, Trae Stephens and Matt Grimm — each of whom worked for Palantir, the data analytics company co-founded by Thiel and named after the all-seeing orb in “The Lord of the Rings.”

Similarly, Anduril’s namesake is a sword from the fantasy series.

Anduril’s future in Baltimore County

It’s unclear what, precisely, Anduril’s plans are in Baltimore County, but the company has stressed the need for more American-made weapons. “We need orders of magnitude more weapons” produced at “hyperscale,” its website states.

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Last year, Anduril launched a campaign to “rebuild the arsenal,” stating that the U.S. needed to significantly increase its military production. Its first factory, “Arsenal-1,” was built in Ohio and recently constructed a high-tech autonomous aircraft. The Ohio facility is projected to directly employ 4,000 people.

“The factory is the weapon,” according to Anduril’s website.

Tradepoint Atlantic

For more than a century, Bethlehem Steel operated a mammoth steel mill and shipyard at Sparrows Point. Following its decline, though, a company later known as Tradepoint Atlantic bought the 3,300-acre site in 2014.

Tradepoint operates a sprawling logistics hub, handling cargo at the site and leasing warehouse space to major retailers.

This year, it broke ground on a new container terminal that will significantly increase the Port of Baltimore’s capacity and is expected to generate over 1,100 direct jobs.