Terra builds Africa’s largest drone factory

Terra Industries, a company focused on autonomous security systems designed to protect Africa and its critical infrastructure, has announced the construction of Pax-2, its second manufacturing facility

The new 34,000-square-foot drone production site in Accra will become Terra Industries’ main regional defense manufacturing hub for drone and counter-drone systems.

The announcement comes after the company secured US$34mn in funding to expand manufacturing capacity, speed up deployments, and strengthen engineering teams in Nigeria and allied African nations.

Pax-2 will be Terra’s second Pax Factory, following the 15,000-square-foot Pax-1 flagship site in Abuja. Once fully operational, Pax-2 is expected to become the largest drone factory in Africa, exceeding the scale of Pax-1. By 2028, the facility is projected to reach annual production capacity of 50,000 units across Terra’s aerial systems portfolio.

The Ghana operation is expected to create 120 engineering jobs and run on a continuous production schedule to meet increasing regional demand. Systems to be manufactured there include the Archer VTOL, a long-range surveillance and strike platform; the Iroko UAV, built for rapid tactical deployment; and Terra’s latest platform, Kama, a high-speed interceptor drone developed for counter-drone defense.

Kama is capable of speeds up to 300 km per hour and has been designed for large-scale production to meet growing demand for kinetic interception capabilities.

The expansion into Ghana supports Terra’s broader objective of developing Africa’s sovereign defense-industrial base. It also comes at a time when conflict dynamics are shifting across the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, where non-state actors are increasingly using modified commercial and fibre-optic drones as attack systems. Similar tactics seen in recent conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe are driving demand for integrated defense solutions combining surveillance, electronic warfare and kinetic response.

“ The only way Africa can have lasting peace is by uniting to build sovereign defense, not by relying on foreign security architecture. We need to control our own destiny by building the tools and systems needed to protect ourselves. That's how this continent defeats terrorism. This is the beginning of that vision playing out more concretely, and we chose Ghana for Pax-2 because of its talent, strategic position, and political will to become a serious defense exporter and prove that this can be done at scale,” commented Nathan Nwachuku, co-founder and CEO of Terra Industries.

Construction of Pax-2 is currently in its final phase, with the facility expected to become fully operational by the end of June 2026.

Terra Industries said the Pax Factories network is central to its long-term Pax Africana vision, centred on achieving lasting peace through African security sovereignty and a future where the continent builds, deploys and controls its own defense technologies.