Forge Nano brings a $330 million model to US battery production
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Forge Nano’s expansion in Morrisville, North Carolina, could easily be viewed as another addition to the growing list of US battery factory announcements, but the commercial structure behind the project suggests a different manufacturing model from the one that shaped much of the country’s recent investment in battery capacity.
The company plans to invest between $300 million and $330 million, expand its site to nearly 315,000 square feet and build annual production capacity of up to 3 GWh, with production scheduled to begin in 2028 and more than 250 jobs expected to be created as the facility scales.
What makes the project more distinctive is the mix of markets and partners supporting it, because Forge Nano is not relying on passenger electric vehicles as its primary source of demand and is instead targeting defense, aerospace, energy storage, heavy vehicles and other specialized applications where domestic sourcing, reliability and performance can carry significant commercial value.
Samsung SDI is adding another layer to that strategy by providing manufacturing expertise, investing directly in Forge Nano and conditionally agreeing to purchase cells from the facility, which gives the project a degree of commercial support that many emerging battery manufacturers do not have when they begin scaling production.
Taken together, those elements point toward a battery manufacturing model built around diversified demand, domestic sourcing, technical differentiation and strategic partnerships rather than a single high-volume automotive program.
The battery market is becoming a national security market
For much of the past decade, discussions about battery manufacturing capacity have centered on passenger EV demand, yet the Morrisville project shows how the commercial case for new battery factories is broadening as defense, aerospace and industrial markets become more important sources of demand.
Forge Nano says 3 GWh of annual production could equate to roughly 150 million battery cells, and depending on the final product mix, that output could support millions of drone batteries, tens of thousands of electric military vehicles, large volumes of communications batteries or hundreds of energy storage system containers.
Those figures should be read as production scenarios rather than fixed commitments, but they illustrate why a facility that appears relatively modest beside major automotive gigafactories can still have considerable strategic importance in markets where battery performance, traceability, supply security and domestic production may carry more weight than the lowest possible unit cost.
A 3 GWh facility is small compared with some automotive battery projects that are designed to produce several times that capacity, yet defense and industrial customers operate under different procurement constraints and often place greater value on continuity of supply, technical specifications and the ability to source components from domestic or allied manufacturers.
Federal support strengthens that manufacturing case because Forge Battery, Forge Nano’s battery manufacturing subsidiary, was selected for a federal cost share of up to $100 million under a battery manufacturing program funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with the project intended to serve markets including heavy trucking, off-road vehicles, aerospace and national defense.
The funding chronology is significant because the award originated under the Biden administration, even though the project has continued to advance under the current Trump administration, making it more accurate to view the grant as part of a longer-running federal industrial policy effort rather than a newly created source of support.
Defense procurement rules could make the 2028 production target especially relevant because battery sourcing requirements are becoming more restrictive, which means domestic production can increasingly function as part of the product specification rather than as a secondary preference for government buyers.
That shift changes the economics for manufacturers because a domestic supply chain can become a source of competitive advantage in markets where procurement rules, supply security and national security considerations all influence purchasing decisions.
Samsung SDI gives Forge Nano something capital alone cannot buy
Battery startups have repeatedly encountered the same industrial challenge, because producing a promising cell in a development environment is very different from manufacturing millions of cells with consistent quality, predictable yields and repeatable performance at commercial scale.
Forge Nano’s partnership with Samsung SDI appears designed to reduce that risk by bringing an experienced global battery manufacturer into the project before the new facility reaches full production.
Under the agreement announced in June, Samsung SDI will support the establishment and operation of the 3 GWh facility, including manufacturing and operational assistance, while Forge Nano expects to produce Samsung SDI cells alongside its own battery products.
Samsung SDI has conditionally agreed to purchase cells produced at the facility beginning in 2028, and Forge Nano will also operate as an authorized US distributor of Samsung SDI cells, creating a relationship that extends beyond technical support into distribution and future demand.
The South Korean manufacturer has reinforced the partnership with $20 million in investment, split between $10 million in Series D financing and $10 million connected with Forge Nano’s planned public listing, which gives the relationship a financial dimension as well as a manufacturing and commercial one.
For Forge Nano, the arrangement provides access to the production experience of an established cell manufacturer while it builds its own US manufacturing capabilities, whereas Samsung SDI gains another route into specialized domestic markets without having to create a separate standalone facility for each application.
The conditional purchase agreement could also reduce one of the biggest risks facing emerging manufacturers, because potential demand is being established before full-scale production begins rather than after the factory has already been built and commissioned.
That structure helps address several challenges at the same time, including access to capital, customer acquisition, production ramp-up and manufacturing expertise, which is why the partnership may prove more important than the headline investment figure alone.
Samsung SDI’s broader US strategy is changing at the same time, as the company recently acquired General Motors’ 49.99% stake in their battery joint venture in New Carlisle, Indiana, giving Samsung SDI its first wholly owned battery plant in North America.
The company plans to use that facility for energy storage system batteries while continuing separate battery development work with GM, which suggests that battery manufacturers are becoming more flexible about how they allocate capacity across automotive, storage and other end markets.
Atomic-scale technology now faces an industrial-scale test
Forge Nano’s technical differentiation begins with its Atomic Armor platform, which uses atomic layer deposition to apply extremely thin coatings to battery materials with the aim of improving stability, reducing degradation and supporting stronger long-term cell performance.
The more important commercial question is whether those material-level improvements can be reproduced reliably in a manufacturing environment where quality, throughput, yield and process consistency determine whether a technology can compete at industrial scale.
Forge Nano has already attracted interest from major industrial companies, including GM Ventures, which invested $10 million in the business in 2024 and entered into a strategic partnership to study potential uses of the coating technology in GM battery applications.
The company has also worked with battery material producer Group14 Technologies on cells using silicon-based materials and a predominantly domestic supply chain, adding another example of how Forge Nano is positioning its technology within a wider US battery manufacturing network.
The Morrisville expansion raises the stakes because Forge Nano is moving beyond supplying coatings and materials technology alone and is attempting to combine materials engineering, cell manufacturing and domestic sourcing inside a production operation capable of reaching hundreds of millions of cells over time.
That makes the factory an industrial test of the company’s technology as well as a capacity expansion, since successful execution will depend on whether performance gains achieved at the material level can be preserved through large-scale cell production.
The project also reflects a broader change in the US battery market, where future investment may be less dependent on assumptions about passenger EV sales and more closely tied to energy storage, defense systems, industrial equipment, aerospace and other applications in which batteries are becoming a more important part of critical infrastructure.
Forge Nano still faces substantial execution risk because equipment must be installed, production lines must be commissioned, yields must improve, cells must meet customer requirements and conditional agreements must eventually convert into recurring commercial orders.
Even so, the structure surrounding the Morrisville project is already notable because federal funding reduces part of the capital burden, Samsung SDI contributes manufacturing experience and potential demand, Atomic Armor provides a technical point of differentiation and defense and industrial markets reduce the company’s dependence on consumer EV growth.
If those elements work together as planned, the most significant outcome may not simply be another 3 GWh of US battery capacity, but the emergence of a more practical model for how smaller domestic battery manufacturers can reach commercial scale without trying to compete directly with the largest global gigafactories.
Source:
Clean Technica
