Huntington Ingalls to establish unmanned systems center of excellence

Huntington Ingalls Industries has broken ground on a new unmanned systems center of excellence in Hampton, VA, the company said today.

The 20-acre campus will include two buildings totaling over 150,000 square feet of space. They will be "purpose-built for unmanned systems prototyping, production and testing," the company said.

"This agile space will be reconfigurable for different production and systems integration projects and have precision machining capabilities, a surface finishing area, and a dedicated welding space," HII added.

The first 22,000-square-foot building is set for completion by the end of 2020; the main 135,000-square-foot facility is scheduled for completion by the end of next year.

The Virginia governor's office today said the new center will create more than 250 new jobs and that Virginia competed with North Carolina for the project.

"Governor [Ralph] Northam approved a $1.5 million grant from the Commonwealth's Opportunity Fund to assist the City of Hampton with the project," the office said. "The Governor also approved a performance-based grant of $1.5 million from the Virginia Investment Performance program, an incentive that encourages capital investment by existing Virginia companies."

Virginia noted that HII is also eligible for funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation.