Defense manufacturing startup Hadrian on Thursday announced the closing of $260 million Series C funding round led by Peter Thiel‘s Founders Fund and Lux Capital.

The machine parts company said it will use the funding to build a new 270,000 square foot factory in Mesa, Arizona, and expand its Torrance, California, location as it looks to beef up its shipbuilding and naval defense capabilities.

“What we really need in this country is this quantum leap above China’s manufacturing model,” said CEO Chris Power in an interview with CNBC’s Morgan Brennan. “It’s about supercharging the worker versus replacing them.”

Defense tech startups like Hadrian are disrupting the mainstay defense contracting industry, which is led by leaders such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, and battling it out to boost U.S. defense production while scooping up Department of Defense contracts.

Hadrian said the Arizona space will be four times the size of its California facility and start operations by Christmas. The factory will create 350 local jobs. The Hawthrone, California-based company said it is working on four to five new facilities to support production over the next year to support Department of Defense needs.

Hadrian said it uses robotics and artificial intelligence to automate factories that can “supercharge American workers.”

Power said demand is rapidly growing, but the lack of U.S.-based talent is a major hurdle to building American dominance in shipbuilding and submarines.

Using its tools, the company said it can train workers within 30 days, making them 10 times more productive. Its workforce includes ex-marines and former nurses who have never set foot in a factory.

“We have to do a lot more … but certainly we’re able to keep up with the scale right now, and grateful to our team and customers for letting us go and do that,” he said. “As a country, we have to treat this like a national security crisis, not just the economics of manufacturing.”

The fresh raise also includes investments from Andreessen Horowitz and new stakeholders such as Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter Capital.

The company closed a $92 million funding round in late 2023.

WATCH: Startup Hadrian raises $260 million to expand its AI-powered factories to meet soaring demand

Amazon is laying off some staffers in its cloud computing division, the company confirmed on Thursday.

“After a thorough review of our organization, our priorities, and what we need to focus on going forward, we’ve made the difficult business decision to eliminate some roles across particular teams in AWS,” Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said in a statement. “We didn’t make these decisions lightly, and we’re committed to supporting the employees throughout their transition.”

The company declined to say which units within Amazon Web Services were impacted, or how many employees will be let go as a result of the job cuts.

Reuters was first to report on the layoffs.

In May, Amazon reported a third straight quarterly revenue miss at AWS. Sales increased 17% to $29.27 billion in the first quarter, slowing from 18.9% in the prior period.

Amazon said the cuts weren’t primarily due to investments in artificial intelligence, but are a result of ongoing efforts to streamline the workforce and refocus on certain priorities. The company said it continues to hire within AWS.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been on a cost-cutting mission for the past several years, which has resulted in more than 27,000 employees being let go since 2022. Job reductions have continued this year, though at a smaller scale than preceding years. Amazon’s stores, communications and devices and services divisions have been hit with layoffs in recent months.

AWS last year cut hundreds of jobs in its physical stores technology and sales and marketing units.

Last month, Jassy predicted that Amazon’s corporate workforce could shrink even further as a result of the company embracing generative AI.

“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy told staffers. “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce.”

WATCH: Amazon CEO says AI will change the workforce

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company CEO C.C. Wei on Thursday said the company is seeing “strong interest” from its leading U.S. customers and is working to speed up its volume production schedule by several quarters.

TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, and the company has pledged to invest a total of $165 billion in advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. The company shared updates to its global manufacturing plans during its second-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

“TSMC will continue to play a critical and integral role in enabling our customers’ success, while also maintain a key partner and network of the U.S. semiconductor industry,” Wei said on the call.

As part of its investment in the U.S., TSMC is building six advanced wafer manufacturing fabrication facilities in Arizona, two advanced packaging fabrication facilities and an R&D center.

Wei said the first fabrication facility in Arizona is already complete, the second has been built and construction is underway at the third.

The company reported $31.7 billion in revenue for the period, as well as nearly a 61% rise in profit year over year, hitting a record high and beating estimates.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened steep “reciprocal tariffs” of 32% in Taiwan, but the country is carrying out trade talks with the U.S., according to local media reports. Trump warned of potential additional tariffs on semiconductors earlier this month.

“Looking into second half of 2025, we have not seen any change in our customers’ behavior so far,” Wei said. “However, we understand the uncertainties and risk from the potential impact of tariff policies, especially on consumer-related and the price-sensitive, end-market segment.”

WATCH: TSMC posts second-quarter profit surge — here are the key points