Happy Tuesday.
The build this week: the Department of War put $25 million behind a rare-earth refinery at a 50,000-square-meter former RCA plant in Marion, Indiana. The project turns industrial reuse into a test of whether federal capital can close the processing gap between recycled feedstock and qualified material.
Underneath: Bosch beginning silicon-carbide production in California, Echodyne scaling to 30,000 radars a year, Boeing adding a 737 MAX line in Everett, the Gordie Howe bridge getting an opening date, and Helsing raising $1.8 billion.
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The Lead
The Department of War is putting $25 million into ReElement Technologies to expand rare-earth refining at the company's Marion, Indiana campus. The money will fund equipment, installation, and working capital for a facility designed to process end-of-life magnets and recycled feedstocks into separated rare-earth oxides and other critical-mineral products.
The project is taking shape inside more than 50,000 square meters of former Thompson Electronics, Farnsworth Radio, and RCA space. ReElement's phase-one plan calls for four refining lines with more than 16,000 metric tons of stated annual capacity, phased into service from the third quarter of 2026 through the first quarter of 2027. The company projects about 100 initial jobs with a possible path toward 300 as the site scales. Those figures remain targets until the lines are installed, qualified, and running.
The larger backdrop is America's dependence on a rare-earth supply chain dominated by China. Rare earths are essential inputs in permanent magnets used across electric motors, generators, electronics, and defense systems. Manufacturers need them in highly refined and qualified forms, which makes separation and processing as strategically important as mining.
USGS estimates that China mined 270,000 metric tons of rare earths in 2025, more than five times U.S. output. The United States produced 51,000 tons of mineral concentrate but only 8,900 tons of rare-earth compounds and metals. It remained 67% reliant on net imports for those processed materials, and China supplied 71% of U.S. rare-earth compound and metal imports from 2021 through 2024.
That gap is what makes Marion important. The United States already mines rare earths, but it needs more domestic capacity to turn raw and recycled material into products that magnet, semiconductor, energy, and defense manufacturers can use. ReElement is placing that missing industrial step inside an existing American manufacturing campus.
For Marion, the result could be a second industrial life for a site that once made televisions and radios. If ReElement delivers its planned ramp, the region gains skilled production jobs, supplier demand, and a place in a strategically important domestic supply chain. The country gains refining capacity at one of its weakest industrial links.
The real test comes when the first qualified material leaves the facility. If Marion can produce it reliably and at commercial scale, this $25 million investment will connect a national-security priority to operating lines, local paychecks, and a durable new industrial role for the region.
Defense & Space
CACI's SkyValor counter-drone system moved into full-rate production for southern-border deployment, although the company did not disclose the contract value.
L3Harris received $84 million in U.S. Army orders for AN/PRC-158C manpack radios, adding another production tranche tied to its Rochester, New York operations.
Gentex won a five-year, $44.8 million Army IDIQ for rotary-wing helmet systems, spares, and support across the service's aviation fleet.
A Raytheon-led team was selected for Britain's Omnia program, a 15-year integrated Army training system valued at roughly $2.7 billion.
The Navy christened the future USS George M. Neal, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer built by HII's Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Semiconductors & Electronics
Bosch secured up to $225 million in CHIPS funding for its up to $2 billion Roseville, California silicon-carbide conversion, where sample production has begun and commercial output is planned this year.
Intel announced a roughly $5.7 billion AI-linked investment at its Leixlip, Ireland manufacturing campus.
TSMC will add two advanced-packaging plants in Chiayi, a buildout Taiwan's economy minister said could support about $9.35 billion in annual output and 9,000 jobs.
Samsung is pulling its first Yongin fab start forward to 2029, according to a source briefed on the plan.
Manufacturing & Automation
Echodyne opened an 86,350-square-foot radar plant in Kirkland designed to produce as many as 30,000 radars a year.
Boeing is establishing a 737 MAX line in Everett, its first outside Renton, as part of a roughly $1 billion Washington investment.
Fulflex acquired a 300,000-square-foot automated medical-products plant in Jacksonville, Texas and added more than 250 employees to its North American manufacturing base.
Ontario committed more than C$269,000 to Ritch-Meyer toward a C$1.345 million machine-shop modernization in Wallaceburg that protects 16 jobs and creates one.
Energy & Materials
WTI jumped 9.4% to $78.14 and Brent rose 9.6% to $83.30 as renewed U.S.-Iran conflict put the Strait of Hormuz back at the center of industrial energy risk.
Asian lithium prices may ease in the third quarter as additional supply enters the market, according to S&P Global's latest trade review.
Supply Chain & Freight
The $4.7 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge opens July 27, adding six lanes to the corridor that handles roughly 2.7 million to 2.9 million trucks a year.
Georgia Ports opened the final piece of its $126 million Brampton Road project, creating a direct four-lane connection from Garden City Terminal Gate 3 to I-516.
Asia to U.S. West Coast container rates reached $7,069 per FEU, up 276% since February, while East Coast rates reached $8,808.
Amazon's holiday fulfillment fee will add an average 32 cents per unit from October 15 through January 14, giving sellers an early inventory-positioning deadline.
A new 20% cargo toll and a container-ship attack turned Hormuz from an energy-price story into an immediate routing, insurance, and delivery-risk problem.
Dealbook
Helsing raised about $1.8 billion in a Series E that values the European defense company at roughly $18 billion.
Ferguson agreed to acquire FloWorks for $1.6 billion, expanding its industrial flow-control distribution platform.
Skapion raised a $36 million seed round for navigation and autonomy technology aimed at contested defense environments.
Pelican Energy Partners acquired Veridiam, a precision manufacturer of nuclear fuel channels and components for defense, space, and other markets; terms were not disclosed.
Mill Point Capital acquired Total Safety Supplies & Solutions, an industrial MRO and PPE distributor; terms were not disclosed.
TransDigm abandoned its $960 million Stellant Systems acquisition after the Justice Department threatened to challenge the aerospace-electronics transaction.
The Department of War's $25 million ReElement investment funds equipment, installation, and working capital for Marion's commercial refining buildout.
Back Thursday.
