GROUNDBREAKING MARKS FIRST PHYSICAL STEP TOWARD Z4 COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION

JetZero broke ground on 15 June 2026 on its first manufacturing and final assembly campus — an 8-million-square-foot facility on more than 600 acres in Greensboro, North Carolina. The project is supported by the largest state-level incentive package ever awarded to any startup of any industry in North Carolina and is projected to create 14,500 jobs over the next ten years and attract $4.7 billion in investment to the Triad region. Construction begins immediately, with hiring expected to ramp in phases as the facility comes online over the course of the decade.

Tom O’Leary, CEO and co-founder of JetZero, said it should come as no surprise that the company was breaking ground in North Carolina — the first-in-flight state — which he said shared JetZero’s vision for its future as a global aerospace hub. He said the time had come for an all-wing aircraft to meet the industry’s need for more efficient aircraft that also delivered an exceptional passenger experience, and that JetZero intended to reshape aviation from Greensboro.

THE Z4: BLENDED-WING-BODY DESIGN FOR THE COMMERCIAL MIDDLE MARKET

The Greensboro factory will produce JetZero’s Z4, a blended-wing-body aircraft designed for what the company identifies as the unserved commercial middle market — the segment between the largest narrowbody operations and the smallest widebodies where no aircraft currently offers an optimal combination of capacity, range and fuel efficiency. The Z4 is configured for 250 passengers with a range of up to 5,000 nautical miles, and JetZero projects it will be up to 50% more fuel efficient than conventional tube-and-wing aircraft in the same category while delivering an elevated cabin experience. Critically, the aircraft is designed to fit within the gate and ground infrastructure of today’s airports, removing the compatibility barrier that has historically limited the commercial viability of unconventional fuselage designs.

JetZero is also developing military variants of the Z4, including an aerial refuelling tanker and transport aircraft. The company says that in the tanker role, the all-wing design delivers twice the range or twice the payload relative to conventional tanker types — a capability that has attracted significant interest from the United States Air Force, which awarded JetZero a contract in 2023 to build and fly a full-scale demonstrator. That programme represents a parallel development pathway to the commercial Z4 and provides JetZero with both government funding and real-world validation of the underlying design approach.

DIGITAL-FIRST, AI-NATIVE SMART FACTORY BUILT WITH SIEMENS AND DELOITTE

The Greensboro facility is being designed as a digital-first, AI-native smart factory in collaboration with Siemens and Deloitte. The two partners are providing advanced digital and AI-native platforms that allow engineers to build a complete digital twin of the factory before any concrete is poured — testing how machines, people and materials will move through the building and making changes on screen rather than on site. Ann Fairchild, President and CEO of Siemens USA, described the partnership as a demonstration of how cutting-edge industrial technology can help reindustrialise America and said digital twins allowed the next generation of manufacturing facilities to come to life faster and with greater confidence.

Kelly Herod, Chief Client Officer at Deloitte, said the work with JetZero brought automation and artificial intelligence together with data strategies informed by Deloitte’s experience at The Smart Factory by Deloitte at Wichita — connecting design, the shop floor and the workforce. JetZero says the result will be the most efficient and adaptable aerospace manufacturing plant of its kind in the world, with the digital-first design approach providing the flexibility to adapt the factory as the programme scales and the aircraft’s configuration evolves.