The Company Taking On China And Trying To Restart Manufacturing In America
In a Nutshell
Atomic Industries, led by Aaron Slod and Lou Young in Detroit, is using AI to digitize and scale tool-and-die making—the keystone of mass production—aiming to outpace China's dominance by designing superior molds for injection molding via software trained on sensors and expert skills. At the Reindustrialize conference, they showcased patriotic efforts to revive U.S. manufacturing, including Anduril's potential American computers and flying boats. Local entrepreneur Andy Darosi bought a derelict factory to spark innovation through bus renovations and a self-driving fire truck, embodying Detroit's gritty fight to reindustrialize amid decay and talent gaps.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Detroiters say, "we're not Cleveland." Detroit has beautiful parks, awesome houses, huge urban farms, a downtown, and magnificent public restrooms. Detroit remains caught between decaying remnants of the past and hope for revitalization by concerned citizens.
Detroit hosted the second Reindustrialize conference downtown this summer, an ultra-patriotic event aimed at getting the US to make stuff again.
How do we make Detroit into the American Shenzhen?
The narrator strolled conference halls. Interactions included greetings like "Hey, Alex," "I loved all the stuff you've been putting out recently," "You're like a superstar around here," and "I heard you're trying to build a city."
Reindustrialize featured flying boats, defense tech, and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey (sort of, via a robotic hand).
Hello, Palmer. Are you in there? We're shaking hands. The future is here.
Dell was the last computer manufacturer in the United States. I think that there's a lot of people who want to pretend that they can't make peace with the United States. Who is going to make an American computer again? Well, I think there's a chance that it's going to be Anduril.
[applause]
Aaron Slod organized the conference and runs Atomic Industries in Detroit, modernizing tool and die making to bring manufacturing back to the US.
What we're focused on is honestly transferring a trade skill into an AI. This trade is called tool and die making. So this is the keystone to mass production. You have a widget and you want to produce it in some volume consistently and reliably. You make a mold or some kind of tool.
Tool and die making creates the mold for mass-producing items like car doors or airplane wings.
If we want to have any hope at accelerating the pace of development in the industrial base, we have to be able to digitize trade skills to preserve them, replicate them, and then ultimately scale them rapidly.
These machines make tools, molds, and parts for mass production. The US made them in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, but it died out in the 1970s and 1980s. By 2025, China is the unquestioned tool and die making capital of the world.
Atomic plans to learn from machines and skilled craftspeople by watching them, then use software and AI to mimic and improve skills, making parts faster, cheaper, and better than humans.
The US used to make machines like this... No, they would make them like this for sure, going back way 40s, 50s, 60s. So, it died out in the 70s and 80s.
Lou Young, Atomic co-founder, demoed processes. Injection molding machines: 3,000 ton, 500 ton, 240 ton presses. Each tool has sensors for data to train models. Molds for cell phone cases, drone components, any plastic part.
Each mold is a complicated engineering problem: core and cavity block with gap for melted plastic, cooling channels dictating cooling time and quality, gate placement, ejector pins to push parts off.
There's only one perfect tool design for a given part geometry and our software's goal is to hit that and then we get to run that holy grail mold for part production. So we'll produce parts better, faster, cheaper than anyone because all of our molds are better than anyone else's.
Software autonomously designs conformal cooling water lines following part shape (not straight drilled holes), requiring 3D printing. Example: plate with tooling inserts having crazy waterline designs.
Software trains on design and fabrication: knows to print inserts, sequence machines, cutters, paths.
If you talk to anybody in industry having a piece of software that can design a production grade mold for something is literally insane. They would basically tell you that it's probably fake.
Evolved from software to factory to prove designs work in real mold making. Next: build another factory as giant production facility for parts using their molds.
Atomic's software must outflank China's might; US must rediscover manufacturing know-how. Few enter the trade in US. Biggest North American tool builder in Canada has 26-27 mold designers; China shops have 60-70-80.
Our only hope to ever dwarf them is with software.
Detroit has unmatched concentration of skills. Lou Young worked in plastic injection tool building and molding since before high school; father was mold maker (generational).
The industrial DNA of Detroit and all the tool making history and families that came up here. I'm not trying to get rid of these people or replace them. I'm trying to turn them into superhumans, basically.
Andy Darosi, Detroit native, entrepreneur, YouTuber, bought factory in 2021 for $700,000 (55,000 sq ft, 5 buildings, 2.5-12 acres). Bought in early 2022, posted video "I bought a car factory," gained 100,000 followers overnight.
Four years ago, bought giant car factory to restart for affordable truck but filled with Facebook Marketplace finds. Plans giant auction August 16th, everything starts at $1.
Break-ins: stole bus batteries ($5-6k), cut battery cable ends for lead ($1 each but $10k damage), catalytic converters. Building 40 ft long, 8 ft tall battle gate.
Family: Grandpa paperwork at Detroit Diesel, grandma secretary at General Motors, mom legal aid at Detroit Diesel, grandpa's brother installed every horn in every 1953 Packard (no days off).
There's like a deep pride with that.
City built quickly with auto boom, war boom, then 25 years later everyone left like a financial hurricane.
Door painted message so job seekers knew no jobs before reaching it. Grew up watching factories close; wants to save one.
28 years ago big fire caused smoke damage, wobbly roof. Bought airport navigational signs from government auctions.
High taxes, poor city services, bad public safety, traffic safety, but unique opportunity for 34-year-old to buy former factory.
Services buses: buys 8-9 year old school buses, strips and renovates.
Built self-driving fire truck: remote control or email (forward, back, left, right). Brain box with servos for any vehicle.
What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to wave a flag to attract the right sort of people to make the kind of innovation stuff we want to make here.
Encapsulates Detroit: run bus company, fix cars, YouTube to pay bills amid low economic activity, maintenance on leaks, tarps.
We're constantly fighting for survival, but that's sort of where cool things come out of. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Contrasts with Mountain View/Google comfort lacking inventiveness.
Got soft. When you have too much resource, it's hard to be really inventive because life's comfortable. But here, we can't stay put. We have to keep moving.
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