Former OpenAI exec has quietly built $1.5 billion startup, betting AI can revive U.S. manufacturing

OpenAI's former research chief has been quietly building a startup that aims to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. using AI. Bob McGrew's newest company, Arda, has raised $230 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, the company told CNBC in an exclusive interview Tuesday. The round was led by Altimeter Capital, Accel and Khosla Ventures. Arda makes AI software to help automate manufacturing. McGrew, who was also Palantir's product and engineering lead for over a decade, said Arda's AI models have already been deployed with military tech company Anduril. "It's a user interface and an agent that does for manufacturing engineers what Claude or Cursor does for programmers," McGrew told CNBC.