Divergent Says Digital Manufacturing Can Put Defense Hardware in Flight in Under Three Months
Divergent CEO Lukas Czinger argues that the Pentagon needs manufacturing systems that can adapt designs quickly and produce them at scale, not just more factories. The company works beneath defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, using digitally driven processes including metal 3D printing; Czinger says it can move from engineering inputs to flight-ready hardware in under three months. He presents Divergent’s role as supplying production capacity, while contractors retain their programs and intellectual property.
Divergent is selling manufacturing capacity, not a weapons program
Divergent’s pitch to the Pentagon is that defense production needs more than additional factories: it needs manufacturing systems that can make new designs quickly and produce them at scale. CEO Lukas Czinger describes the company as an infrastructure layer beneath defense contractors and other product companies. Divergent does not compete to win programs as a prime contractor; it acts as a manufacturing partner, supplying components or assemblies.
That distinction also shapes how the company works with contractors that compete with one another. Czinger says customers retain their intellectual property: Divergent does not lock it up. The company engineers and manufactures hardware to the customer’s specifications, with the obligation to deliver on time, at the required quality and in sufficient volume. For Lockheed Martin, he says, that work can include an airframe.
Divergent’s stated aim is to be a “force multiplier” for those contractors. The company lists more than 25 active aerospace and defense programs and more than 500 employees. Its named customers include Lockheed Martin, RTX and General Atomics.
Czinger identifies production volume as a distinct challenge: the question is not only how quickly a design can be developed, but how many units can be made each year. Divergent’s stated offering is manufacturing capacity to help address that constraint; the interview does not establish achieved output at a particular scale.
Speed depends on qualifying new processes and adapting hardware
Czinger puts speed—and speed with scale—at the center of the company’s value. It matters both at the start of a program, when a contractor receives new requirements, and later, when experience prompts a change to the mission or hardware. In his account, production speed includes adapting hardware as well as developing it quickly.
He says Divergent can move from engineering inputs to a flight-ready vehicle in under three months, and produce a critical design in two to three weeks. With primes in the loop, he says, the company has shown it can move from program start to full-rate production in under a year. He contrasts that timeline with programs that take more than five years to reach market.
We can go from engineering inputs to flight-ready vehicle in under three months.
The manufacturing approach Czinger describes uses metal 3D printing and digitally driven processes. Footage shows metal being printed, large parts handled and robotic arms assembling components. An on-screen label describes the assembly process as “fully software defined with zero changeover time between designs.” Czinger calls metal 3D printing a better way, in the company’s view, to make structures for many of these systems. But he says the technology must be qualified for defense use.
That makes acceptance by the services a practical constraint. Czinger says the administration has pushed for processes that bring in new technology without an overly cautious risk posture. Asked by Ed Ludlow about red tape, he points to acceptance by the Air Force, Navy, Army and other services: their demand for programs, he argues, can prompt investment in factories and support production at scale.
Cross-industry work is meant to steady factory economics
Divergent began with a thesis Czinger describes as “product agnostic manufacturing at low unit cost”: a digitally driven factory that could make a car part and then a defense part, while keeping costs low for both. The company spent six years building that platform and has raised more than $1 billion, he says. Czinger describes the next step as building more factories.
The Long Beach facility is the company’s second and is coming online. An on-screen graphic describes it as 430,000 square feet, says it targets an eightfold increase in annual production capacity and notes plans to add about 1,000 employees. Czinger gives a different figure for the site: 400,000 square feet, with capacity for 30,000 airframes a year. He cites customer location, engineering talent and the suitability of the facility for advanced processes as reasons for choosing Long Beach, while saying Divergent plans to expand in multiple states.
Czinger also argues that work across industries can help with uneven defense demand, which he says is especially choppy in sustainment and maintenance. In his account, making products for different industries can help keep factory volume steadier and maintain favorable economics. That is the rationale for the cross-industry model, not a claim that defense demand itself is constant.
He expects the current defense cycle to last, pointing to demand for new systems, the price points the department is seeking and the arrival of new competitors. His expectation is that innovation will increase, volumes will rise and prices will fall. Divergent’s proposed advantage is a flexible manufacturing base that can serve changing programs and help manage uneven demand.