Forge Nano has begun expanding its facility in Morrisville, North Carolina, in a project that will increase the area of its operations from 100,000 square feet to approximately 315,000 square feet. Once completed, the facility is expected to house a process for producing lithium-ion battery cells with annual capacity of up to 3 gigawatt-hours, with operations scheduled to begin in 2028.
The project is supported by a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, allocated through the Battery Materials Processing and Manufacturing Program. The grant was approved in 2024 under a program established by the bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021. Forge Nano says its private investment in the expansion will range from $300 million to $330 million.
Who Will Benefit from the Production Capacity?
In its first phase, the grant funding is not specifically targeting electric passenger vehicles. The funding was designed to support the decarbonization of heavy-duty trucks, along with off-road vehicles and aviation and national defense applications. The company says that, at full capacity, the facility will produce approximately 150 million battery cells annually.
Depending on the product mix and customer demand, this capacity could roughly equal 10 million to 20 million drone batteries, or 34,000 electric military vehicles, or 6 million BB-2590 radio batteries, or 900 Type II 6T batteries, or approximately 275 containers for energy-storage systems annually. Forge Nano links the timing of the expansion to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requirements concerning battery sources, which are scheduled to take effect in 2028.
Partnership with Samsung SDI
In June, Samsung SDI and Forge Nano entered into a conditional agreement to purchase battery cells from the new plant. Forge Nano will also distribute Samsung SDI cells in the United States as an authorized distributor. In addition to manufacturing its own Atomic Armor™ batteries, the facility will produce Samsung SDI cells intended for automotive applications, without that meaning they will be directed to the consumer passenger-vehicle market.
Paul Lichty, CEO of Forge Nano, described the agreement as a partnership between an American battery-technology company and a tier-one cell manufacturer to produce cells on U.S. soil. According to the company’s presentation, this model could reduce expansion risks and enable the supply of domestically manufactured cells to defense and critical-infrastructure customers.
Why Does This Project Matter?
The plant’s significance lies in the effort to build a U.S. source of advanced cells for sectors that Forge Nano considers highly dependent on supply chains controlled from abroad. Expected demand is not limited to vehicles; the report notes that the expansion of data centers and increasing needs among industrial users and large loads are also supporting growth in the energy-storage market.
Audrey Robertson, the assistant secretary of energy overseeing the Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, attended the expansion groundbreaking ceremony. Earlier materials related to the grant also noted the support of U.S. Representative Deborah Ross and Republican Senators Thom Tillis and Ted Budd. General Motors previously invested $10 million in Forge Nano in 2024, with plans to build pilot cells at the company’s headquarters in Thornton, Colorado, but the current status of that collaboration was not resolved in the material.