This Month's Latest Tech News in Columbus, OH - January 31st 2026 Edition

In This Update

• Columbus emerges as the Midwest’s tech-manufacturing engine
• Anduril’s Arsenal-1: 4,000 jobs and a modern drone campus
• Intel’s “Ohio One” and Columbus’s AI infrastructure build-out
• Honda’s full takeover of the Ohio battery plant and supply chain
• Hims & Hers, Wells Fargo, The Hartford: corporate tech hubs expand
• Startups and VC: O.H.I.O. Fund, Heartland Ventures, and talent wins
• Ohio’s 100% capital-gains deduction for in-state investments
• Ohio State partnerships and the Technology Validation & Start-up Fund
• JobsOhio at CES and the manufacturing-first pitch
• How Columbus is changing on the ground: neighborhoods and careers
• Risks to the boom and the 2026 watchlist

Anduril’s Arsenal-1: 4,000 jobs and a modern drone campus

Ramping from site work to production

At Rickenbacker International Airport south of downtown, construction on Anduril Industries’ Arsenal-1 campus moved from concept to reality in January. The first building, a roughly 775,000-square-foot facility, is now well underway, with autonomous drone and aircraft manufacturing targeted to begin by mid-summer 2026. Local reporting on Anduril’s Rickenbacker buildout underscored that this is only the initial phase of a multi-building Arsenal-1 complex.

Anduril expects the campus to support more than 4,000 jobs over time, making it one of the largest defense-tech employers in the Midwest. A separate one-year update on the project reported that early autonomous jets are already expected to ship this spring, even as the factory buildout continues. For Columbus, that means defense manufacturing jobs materializing on a faster timetable than many initially assumed.

A modern defense plant, not a legacy line

Arsenal-1 is designed as a software-defined, highly automated facility rather than a traditional assembly line. Anduril has been hiring across AI and autonomy, perception systems, embedded software, robotics, systems engineering, and advanced manufacturing, alongside skilled trades that can work under defense-grade security and quality standards. For local workers, this blurs the line between “tech job” and “factory job” in ways the region has not seen before.

Talent pipeline and the AI Grand Prix

Nationally, founder Palmer Luckey used January to push the company’s talent strategy, launching a $500,000 “AI Grand Prix” competition that offers both prize money and a job interview to the winner. Coverage in Entrepreneur’s profile of Anduril’s global contest framed the challenge as a way to surface top autonomy engineers outside the usual coastal networks - an approach that dovetails with Arsenal-1’s location in Central Ohio.

Intel’s “Ohio One” and Columbus’s AI infrastructure build-out

Intel’s fabs move from “if” to “how fast”

Through January, Intel’s “Ohio One” project in New Albany shifted from a question of viability to a race to meet demand. CEO Lip-Bu Tan signaled that global demand for foundry capacity is now outpacing supply, a tailwind for the two-fab complex rising just northeast of Columbus. Local coverage noted that Ohio could be a major winner as chip customers seek U.S.-based manufacturing, with NBC4’s Intel reporting emphasizing the project’s strategic timing.

Intel also hired a former One Columbus executive as its new director of state government affairs for Ohio, a move aimed at deepening ties with state and local officials. Construction at the New Albany International Business Park continued to strain roads, power, and housing in the New Albany-Johnstown-Gahanna triangle, underscoring how semiconductor fabs act as anchors for entire regional economies.

Data centers as the AI-era factory floor

Alongside chips, Central Ohio quietly crossed a milestone this winter with at least 133 data centers operating across the region. Hyperscale cloud campuses in New Albany, Dublin, and Hilliard now sit next to enterprise and colocation sites closer to downtown, forming the physical backbone for AI, fintech, and SaaS workloads. JobsOhio’s CES brief on Ohio as a scaled AI and manufacturing hub highlighted how these facilities complement megaprojects like Intel.

Amazon Web Services has committed tens of billions of dollars in Ohio data center investments through 2030, while newer players are pushing specialized AI clusters with tens of thousands of GPUs. LinkedIn’s “Jobs on the Rise 2026” report, cited in local coverage, ranked “data center technician” among the nation’s fastest-growing roles, with Columbus emerging as one of the top metros for that job.

Skills and roles in the new infrastructure stack

For workers, this build-out is reshaping demand. Fabs require process technicians, automation engineers, and facilities specialists; data centers are hunting for electrical and mechanical trades, network engineers, and operations techs comfortable with 24/7 environments. Certifications like CompTIA server credentials, Cisco networking tracks, and power-systems training from industrial vendors are increasingly valued alongside - sometimes even over - traditional four-year CS degrees.

Honda’s full takeover of the Ohio battery plant and supply chain

Honda spent January tightening its U.S. EV supply chain around Ohio. The automaker agreed to buy LG Energy Solution’s stake in their $4.4 billion EV battery plant in Jeffersonville, Fayette County, paying $2.85 billion and taking full ownership of the building while keeping the joint venture in place to run the facility. The plant was slated to begin production later in 2026, according to Utility Dive’s coverage of the Honda-LG deal.

For Central Ohio, the strategic significance went beyond Fayette County. Honda’s engineering, manufacturing, and corporate operations are deeply woven into Marysville, East Liberty, and the Columbus labor market, meaning design decisions and higher-value roles are likely to cluster in and around the metro. Full ownership gives Honda more freedom to control technology, sourcing, and long-term capacity without being overly exposed to foreign partners or regulators.

Solar glass and alternative chemistries

Battery cells were only one piece of January’s energy-manufacturing puzzle. In Logan, Stewart Glass, LLC announced a new solar panel glass plant expected to be the only facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and to create 105 jobs, as highlighted by regional reporting on Ohio’s new solar and aerospace projects. The project added another specialized link in the state’s clean-energy supply chain.

Columbus-based sodium-ion manufacturing

Back in Columbus, Acculon Energy quietly operated a 2 GWh sodium-ion battery facility, positioning Ohio in lower-cost, lithium-independent storage. While sodium-ion trades energy density for safety and cost, it is increasingly attractive for stationary grid applications, giving Central Ohio a foothold in next-generation chemistries that are less tied to volatile global lithium markets.

Hims & Hers, Wells Fargo, The Hartford: corporate tech hubs expand

New Albany’s digital health bet

Corporate tech expansion in January was not limited to factories and fabs. Digital health company Hims & Hers committed $200 million to expand its life sciences hub in New Albany, adding a new state-of-the-art lab and 400 jobs. Regional coverage aggregated by Ohio Tech News’ Columbus section framed the move as another proof point that the New Albany International Business Park is becoming a tightly linked corridor for biotech, cloud infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing.

The expansion pushed Hims & Hers deeper into regulated lab work, fulfillment automation, and data-heavy telehealth platforms. For Columbus, it meant more roles at the intersection of software, logistics, and clinical operations - precisely the kind of applied-tech jobs that don’t require relocating to the coasts.

Downtown fintech and insurance tech

Downtown, financial-services giants continued to bulk up their tech footprints. Wells Fargo moved forward with plans to hire 350+ technology professionals for its Columbus hub, with teams focused on AI-powered fraud detection, digital banking infrastructure, and core platforms. Those jobs add to an already significant local presence from banks and payment firms.

Insurance carrier The Hartford announced a new technology office in downtown Columbus to expand its national IT organization. In its January release on the Columbus technology office, the company positioned the city as a key node in its long-term digital strategy, citing access to talent and the region’s growing status as a tech employment hub.

Career implications for Columbus talent

For developers, data scientists, and product managers, these moves broadened the local menu of “non-defense” tech careers. Roles ranged from machine-learning models to flag suspicious transactions, to data pipelines for telehealth, to cloud engineering for large-scale policy and claims systems. Combined with startup and manufacturing opportunities, January’s corporate expansions reinforced a message that resonated across Central Ohio’s job boards: Columbus now offers a full spectrum of tech work without the coastal price tag.

Startups and VC: O.H.I.O. Fund, Heartland Ventures, and talent wins

Local capital steps up as a magnet

January saw Columbus’s startup scene lean more on its own capital. The O.H.I.O. Fund marked its 30th investment and helped pull California-based manufacturing-tech firm Hyperframe into Columbus, operating with roughly $356 million in capital under management. The fund’s backers described its “balanced” model as a “new engine for Midwest growth,” signaling that advanced-manufacturing startups no longer have to orbit Sand Hill Road to scale.

Heartland Ventures and industrial LPs

Complementing that, Heartland Ventures closed a $60 million Fund III backed by almost 1,000 Midwest industrial owners. Instead of chasing consumer apps, the firm focused on matching AI and software startups with legacy manufacturers that need help modernizing operations. That positioned Columbus squarely in the middle of a widening deal flow between factory floors and cloud-native founders.

Applied-AI startups and talent wins

On the ground, a new crop of companies underscored how local founders are building for real revenue, not vanity valuations. A “2026 Startups to Watch” slate highlighted teams like Kaya AI in construction tech, OpenTab Solutions in workflow automation, and Speculo, whose “Remi” AI assistant for real estate hit $3 million in annualized revenue while HubiFi logged a 10x jump and signed clients including Strava, AllTrails, and Perplexity. Regional roundups such as Purpose Jobs’ list of top Ohio tech companies to watch captured the same theme: B2B-heavy, pragmatically priced, and tied to industrial needs.

“Building out on the coast, that doesn’t necessarily reflect the realities of what’s happening in the Midwest.” - Ojonimi Bako, Co-founder, Kaya AI, quoted in Columbus Business First

For engineers, sales leaders, and operators, these dynamics meant more ways to stay in Columbus while working on AI, dev tools, or industrial SaaS. With local funds writing checks and operators from Anduril, Intel, and Honda seeding the talent pool, January suggested that the region’s startup flywheel is finally spinning under its own power, not just imported capital.

Ohio’s 100% capital-gains deduction for in-state investments

What changed for investors in January

As of January 2026, Ohio taxpayers gained access to one of the most aggressive investor incentives in the country: a 100% deduction on capital gains from qualifying investments in Ohio-based businesses. Analyses such as Ohio’s 2026 Venture Capital Gains Deduction from Ohio Tech News described the policy as effectively dropping the state tax rate on those gains to zero for eligible investors, putting Ohio in rare company nationally for investor-friendly treatment.

How the deduction works in practice

The deduction applies to investments in qualifying Ohio businesses that are held for a minimum period, with precise criteria set out in state guidance. Crucially, it is neutral on sector and business model: angels, seed funds, and individual taxpayers who buy and hold equity in local startups can all benefit, as long as the company remains Ohio-based and meets program rules. That structure fits a pro-market approach - rewarding risk-taking without turning the state into a direct allocator of capital.

Why founders and employees should care

For a Columbus engineer writing a small angel check into a local AI startup, the math changed meaningfully this month. If that investment is held for several years and exits at a gain, 100% of the eligible gain can now be deducted from Ohio taxable income. Founders who grant early equity to employees also see a higher after-tax upside if the company stays headquartered in-state, making it easier to recruit and retain talent without San Francisco-level salaries.

The deduction also complements commercialization tools like the Technology Validation and Start-up Fund (TVSF), which the Ohio Department of Development reopened for applications in late January. As Business Journal Daily’s coverage of new TVSF funding noted, that program supplies up to $1 million in non-dilutive support for lab-to-market efforts - while the tax change improves the payoff for private capital that follows.

Ohio State partnerships and the Technology Validation & Start-up Fund

Honda-OSU: from lab research to product roadmaps

Partnerships between Honda and The Ohio State University deepened in January, tying Columbus’s research engine more tightly to the automaker’s EV and next-gen propulsion roadmap. The collaboration now spans quantum computing for materials and optimization, hydrogen fuel cells, and EV battery durability and efficiency, according to the latest spotlight from the Ohio Innovation Exchange. With Honda’s North American operations already clustered around Marysville and East Liberty, the work underway on campus increasingly feeds directly into regional manufacturing decisions.

For students and mid-career engineers, that meant more chances in January to move from OSU labs into high-value roles in EVs, autonomy, and energy storage without leaving Columbus. Co-ops, joint research centers, and industry-sponsored labs in the university’s innovation district effectively turned the area south of campus into a front door for Honda’s future product lines.

“Honda’s investment and presence at The Ohio State University is an example of how corporate R&D is digging more deeply into Ohio’s growing research ecosystem.” - Ohio Innovation Exchange, Spotlight on Ohio Research & Innovation

TVSF: de-risking commercialization statewide

At the state level, the Ohio Department of Development opened a new round of the Technology Validation & Start-up Fund (TVSF) in late January, aiming squarely at the gap between university inventions and market-ready startups. Phase 1 awards run from $200,000 up to the seven-figure range for viability testing and prototypes, or $100,000 grants tied to hiring student interns. Phase 2 offers up to $200,000 to young companies licensing university IP, helping them bridge from lab demo to paying customers.

Since 2012, TVSF has issued 402 awards totaling more than $67 million across Ohio research institutions, according to state-focused coverage of commercialization programs. Proposals for the current round were due in early February, with awards expected by April 2026, giving OSU spinouts and other university-affiliated startups a near-term shot of non-dilutive capital. Schools from Columbus to Cleveland, including offices like Case Western Reserve University’s Office of Research and Technology Management, increasingly rely on TVSF-style grants to move promising technologies toward private investment.

JobsOhio at CES and the manufacturing-first pitch

Taking Ohio’s pitch to the Las Vegas show floor

On the ground at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, JobsOhio made its first major push to brand the state as the place where AI meets manufacturing. During the show’s new Manufacturing Track, President and CEO J.P. Nauseef told attendees that Ohio’s value proposition is simple: the state doesn’t just prototype next-gen hardware and autonomy systems, it manufactures them at scale and ships them globally. The message echoed deals already underway in Columbus, from Anduril’s Arsenal-1 campus to Intel’s “Ohio One” fabs and cloud data center megaprojects.

Manufacturing-first, not subsidy-first

JobsOhio’s distinctive model was part of the pitch. The organization is funded through liquor profits rather than annual legislative appropriations, giving it more flexibility and a clearer mandate to land private-sector investments instead of building government-run facilities. In a separate advanced air mobility initiative, Nauseef argued that this cross-sector approach has already paid off, noting in a release on an Ohio eIPP aviation proposal that JobsOhio’s collaboration strategy has attracted more than $1.2 billion in aerospace investment to the state, including wins like Joby Aviation and Anduril, according to GlobeNewswire’s coverage of the eIPP proposal.

“JobsOhio’s model for cross-sector collaboration has attracted more than $1.2 billion in aerospace investment, landed transformational manufacturing projects like Joby and Anduril, and built the infrastructure that makes Ohio an advanced air mobility powerhouse.” - J.P. Nauseef, President and CEO, JobsOhio

National attention on a “post-coastal” playbook

Outside observers took note that Ohio’s strategy leans on competitive costs, energy availability, and institutional agility as much as on federal subsidies. Legal analysts examining MIT’s 2026 Breakthrough Technologies list in an Ohio context pointed out that the state is quietly hosting core infrastructure for AI, batteries, and advanced cooling - the unglamorous but essential components of the next tech cycle. CES 2026 gave JobsOhio a global stage to argue that this manufacturing-first model can rebalance tech geography away from the coasts.

How Columbus is changing on the ground: neighborhoods and careers

Walk through downtown Columbus this winter and the shift is tangible: more tech logos on office towers, more hard-hat crews on the edge of town, and more job postings spanning AI, manufacturing, and fintech. A Columbus Underground analysis of local business sentiment reported that 95% of business owners expected conditions to improve or hold steady this quarter, and the city climbed to 12th nationally in startup activity, signaling broad confidence that the boom is real.

Downtown and the Arena District benefited from expanding tech teams at banks, insurers, and SaaS companies, refilling Class A space with roles in cloud engineering, cybersecurity, data science, and product design. Around the outer belt, the Dublin and Hilliard corridor continued to host enterprise IT, insurance-tech, and telecom operations, now increasingly bound to nearby data centers and AI workloads. That gave Northwest Columbus a mix of corporate stability and cutting-edge infrastructure unusual for a Midwestern suburb.

Closer to campus, the Ohio State innovation district emerged as an on-ramp into EVs, autonomy, and applied AI. Students and mid-career professionals moved between university labs, spinouts, and corporate R&D centers, compressing the path from classroom to factory floor or cloud platform into a single neighborhood. With AI coding tools boosting productivity, local universities positioned graduates to punch above their weight in both software and hybrid hardware roles.

The job market reflected that diversification. LinkedIn’s “Jobs on the Rise 2026” report, covered in a Yahoo News piece on Columbus tech employment, highlighted the city as an emerging hub for AI engineers, now among the fastest-growing roles in the country. Combined with strong demand for technicians, electricians, and machinists at fabs and defense plants, Columbus offered an unusually broad range of options for workers willing to straddle software and physical systems.

Risks to the boom and the 2026 watchlist

Structural risks behind the headlines

Beneath January’s surge of announcements, three structural risks loomed over Columbus’s tech-manufacturing upswing. First is talent: Anduril’s defense campus, Intel’s fabs, Honda’s battery plant, and the region’s AI-heavy data centers will collectively need thousands of engineers, technicians, and skilled trades. If local training and in-migration can’t keep up, employers may face wage spikes and project delays rather than a smooth ramp-up.

Second is infrastructure and housing. New industrial sites on the metro’s edges are already testing roads, power capacity, and nearby housing stock. Auto-sector timelines illustrate how tight these windows are; Honda’s joint venture battery facility, for example, has been slated to start operations in 2026, as tracked by AutoTechInsight’s Ohio plant coverage. Any lag in utilities, permitting, or homebuilding could turn today’s boom into tomorrow’s bottleneck.

The third risk is political and regulatory. Large data centers, defense projects, and energy-intensive industrial campuses are enticing targets for activism over land use, emissions, or national-security policy. Reporting on the Honda-LG ownership change at the Jeffersonville battery site in outlets like the Dayton Daily News underscored how quickly governance structures can shift when corporate strategy or public pressure changes.

The 2026 watchlist

Through the rest of 2026, the key markers to watch will be Anduril’s ability to hit mid-year production, Intel’s construction and hiring cadence, Honda’s battery ramp, and whether Ohio’s new investor tax regime meaningfully boosts local angel activity. Just as important will be softer signals: time-to-permit for new housing, enrollment and completion rates for technical programs, and any early local pushback to AI, energy, or defense projects. Those indicators will show whether Columbus can convert a wave of announcements into a durable, broad-based ecosystem.