Less than six months after opening its battery assembly facility, Packet Digital, a leading drone battery manufacturer and designer, has its eyes set on the next step — North Dakota’s first battery cell plant, to be built in north Fargo. As the U.S. government pushes to increase domestic production of battery cells, Packet Digital’s planned factory will place the company in prime position to accomplish this goal by manufacturing high-performance battery cells for the drone market.

A big step in making this a reality was a $17.4 million award issued by the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority (CSEA), a branch of North Dakota’s Industrial Commission. With the CSEA’s goal of supporting technological advancements that increase sustainability of energy production, a partnership with Packet Digital to bring battery cell manufacturing to North Dakota was a perfect fit.

“Packet Digital has been a trusted leader in the drone battery industry for years. We are grateful for the support from CSEA and from North Dakota, which has played an important role in our growing manufacturing footprint in the state,” Packet Digital CEO Terri Zimmerman said. “Opening North Dakota’s first battery cell plant will create high-paying manufacturing jobs here in Fargo, for one of the world’s fastest growing markets.”

With the introduction of the Pentagon’s Replicator program, an initiative to rapidly produce and deploy thousands of autonomous weapons systems within a two-year window was born. A primary goal of the Replicator initiative is to reduce reliance on international parties for U.S. military autonomous systems. Packet Digital seeks to bring battery cell manufacturing to American shores, which will limit supply chain issues and reliance on adversarial parties. With the roadmap set for a battery cell plant in North Dakota, Packet Digital is on track to make the U.S. a larger player in drone battery manufacturing.

“In the past couple of years, multiple military confrontations around the world have highlighted the changing landscape of the modern battlefield, with drones taking a more prominent role,” Zimmerman said. “The Department of Defense has taken notice, and has put out the call to the U.S. manufacturing base to ramp up domestic production of critical U.S. components, and the high-energy density cells that we’re going to produce here in Fargo couldn’t be more critical for U.S. defense and our national security.”

Packet Digital’s track record of successfully combining high-power, high-efficiency and safe power solutions for its customers makes it the ideal choice for manufacturing battery cells in the U.S. Packet Digital’s goal is to manufacture battery cells for customers by the end of 2025 with the facility running at maximum capacity by 2028.