Utah leverages long-standing aerospace assets, industry investment and energy initiatives to position itself as the nation’s aerospace and defense hub.
Utah is positioning itself as a national aerospace and defense (A&D) hub, leveraging a century of manufacturing, testing and favorable geography to accelerate growth.
Speakers noted rapid expansion since 2023, with roughly 600 companies holding defense contracts and more than $6 billion in annual federal awards flowing into the state. Core assets include Hill Air Force Base aircraft maintenance, Northrop Grumman’s Sentinel program expansion, Boeing manufacturing in West Jordan, Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Lab, Delta’s pilot training hub, and L3Harris’s $583 million jamming-technology contract. Domestic extraction of critical minerals and rare earths supports platforms like the F-35, while startups such as Torus have raised over $200 million for energy storage development.
Future initiatives aim to operationalize advanced air mobility through Project Alta—air taxis for people and cargo ahead of the 2034 Winter Olympics—and to explore a Utah spaceport to capture a projected $1.5 trillion space economy. Officials emphasized sustaining domestic manufacturing, scaling software, and expanding energy capacity through Operation Gigawatt to meet A&D power demands.
Leaders argue that Utah’s combination of terrain, wide airspace, industry-university-government partnerships and a “get it done” culture provides a competitive foundation to become the nation’s A&D innovation center.