The US aims to carry out production over two years and in four phases.  

The US Department of War (DoW) has launched a request for information (RFI) to gauge industry’s ability to develop 300,000 drones both quickly and cheaply, a 2 December announcement from the authority has revealed. 

Following plans to “technologically leapfrog” its adversaries announced by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in July, this RFI will assess industry willingness and capacity to create thousands of small one-way attack drones from early 2026 under a new project. 

This project, worth up to USD1 billion, will last two years and consist of four phases, with the first of these phases – or “gauntlets” – running from February to July 2026. During this time, 12 vendors will be asked to collectively produce 30,000 drones at a cost of USD5,000 a unit, the DoW said.  

Over the course of the next three phases, the number of vendors will be reduced to five while the number of drones ordered will increase from 30,000 to 150,000, with the price per drone dropping to USD2,300. 

Collectively, around 340,000 small UAS will be manufactured for US combat units over the course of the programme, the DoW said. 

“Drone dominance will do two things: drive costs down and capabilities up. We will deliver tens of thousands of small drones to our force in 2026, and hundreds of thousands of them by 2027”, Hegseth said.   

It is expected that supply chains and manufacturing capacity for the production of drones in the US will have been strengthened after the programme is completed, the DoW said.