■ FOUNDATION CITY WEST | 06:00 LAUNCH | PAYLOAD: LOCALLY FABRICATED ASTEROID MINING LASERSTHE WEST NEEDS ITS OWN ARSENAL OF SPACEPORT CITIES TO WIN
THE FOUNDATION NETWORK
THE SHIPYARD-CITY NETWORK FOR THE MULTI-PLANETARY ECONOMYThe new space race has already become a competition between spaceport city networks.
China has built a 5-node network of vertically integrated spaceport cities. Combining launch, manufacturing, logistics, and increasingly AI compute into a single coordinated system that has made it a close-second in space capability. Once it unlocks reusability, which could happen within months, this system could accelerate dramatically. Each node strengthens the others, recursively compounding capability and industrial advantage over time.
By comparison, the West has one tropical launch town and Starbase.
The only way to close this gap and achieve airline cadence, approximately 10,000 launches per year, is for the West to build its own network of vertically integrated spaceport cities using a model that solves meaningful problems on Earth while perfecting, at scale, the systems needed for off-world civilization.
FOUNDATION is the solution.
FOUNDATION begins as a network of “shipyards for space” and scales into a globally distributed platform of vertically integrated spaceport cities. Each node provides people and businesses access to launch, industrial capacity, GW-scale compute, capital, and world-class urban environments across the network rather than being confined to a single location.
■ View of the Entrance to the ArsenalE SHIPYARDS, THE ENGINE OF VENICE, by Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1732Arsenale di Venezia
Arsenale di Venezia FOR THE AI + SPACE RACE
■ 1000 YEARS OF VERTICALLY INTEGRATED PORT CITIESIt’s no secret that globalization has stretched and fractured the Western industrial base and its supply chains. There are many reasons why the West must reindustrialise and rebuild its capacity to create. We believe there are credible answers to the “what” and the “how,” but the missing piece is “where.” Simply replicating China’s vertically integrated spaceport city network will not be enough.
To gain an edge, the solution must be rooted in Western culture and history. We believe the answer lies in reviving the Venetian Arsenale model for the AI and space race, not only to reindustrialise the West, but to revive our frontier culture of building, creating, and exploration.
The Venetian Arsenale was a 48-hectare complex of shipyards and armories clustered together in the city of Venice. It became the industrial, financial, and cultural engine that powered Venice’s Golden Age.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the Venetian Arsenale was the largest industrial complex in Europe and underpinned the Venetian Republic’s dominance for nearly 700 years, from the Late Middle Ages through to the early modern period. At its peak in the 16th century, the Arsenale employed roughly 2,000 workers, known as arsenalotti, and could fully assemble a warship in a single day.
The Arsenale did not just build ships. It functioned as an incubator for technology, capital, logistics, and skilled artisans, helping make Venice one of the wealthiest and most culturally vibrant cities in human history.
This is why every FOUNDATION city is based on the Venetian Arsenale-and-city model: a concentrated urban-industrial engine where industry, technology, logistics, capital, and culture compound together to power the West in the AI and space race.
■ LOCATIONS TBC ANCHORING THE MULTIPLANETARY ECONOMY
■ INTRA + INTER-PLANETARY NETWORKFOUNDATION cities are strategically distributed across all key hemispheres and orbital geographies to support the long-term requirements of a high-cadence interplanetary economy. Locations are selected to enhance surrounding Western-allied economies and provide efficient access to critical inclinations and orbital regimes, including equatorial, polar, sun-synchronous, high-inclination, and deep-space transfer trajectories, while enabling resilient launch operations across multiple climates, jurisdictions, and weather systems.
FOUNDATION LOCATIONS
Because these cities are designed to anchor the intraplanetary and interplanetary flows of capital, people, cargo, energy, compute, and orbital infrastructure, site selection extends far beyond launch physics alone. FOUNDATION prioritises locations capable of supporting special economic zones, world-class business operations, industrial expansion, energy generation, and high-quality living conditions within an increasingly climate-constrained world.
By operating as a geographically distributed network rather than a single launch hub, FOUNDATION increases resilience, expands orbital access, reduces bottlenecks, and enables industrial and launch capacity to dynamically scale across the platform.
■ NOT ANOTHER NEO-CITY PROJECTFOUNDATION’S EDGE
■ 01 HIGH-CADENCE ORBITAL ACCESS NETWORK Launch pads, testing, mission integration, and multi-site capacity across a unified system. Tenants secure resilient access to orbital infrastructure across the network, combined with a base of operations.
■ 02 VERTICALLY INTEGRATED INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY
Vertically integrated infrastructure for, AI-native vertically integrated companies. Power, land, part / material suppliers, advanced manufacturing, R+D, compute and testing environments designed to reduce time-to-deployment and unlock resources across multiple nodes as companies scale.
■ 03 GW SCALE COMPUTE + RAPID PERMITTINGFOUNDATION’s network of SEZs provides one of the few regulatory environments in the world capable of permitting, building, and offering GW-scale compute at the speed required for frontier AI labs and the space race.
■ 04 Abundant Sci-Fi LivingBecause each FOUNDATION city serves as a proving ground for next-generation off-world habitation, housing, schools, healthcare, safety, and public spaces across the network are designed to the highest scientific standards.
Proving these systems at scale on Earth is a prerequisite for extending humanity and the FOUNDATION NETWORK to other planets.
■ 05 STATO DA MAR FOR SPACE | PRIVATE SCHENGEN-ZONEFOUNDATION revives Venice’s Stato da Màr model for the AI and space race through a private “Schengen Zone.” Our SEZ network provides a shared commercial, industrial, technological, and logistical framework that allows verified people and businesses to move, work, and build freely across our global network of cities.
■ 06 WESTERN SHENZHENSFOUNDATION creates Western-aligned, Mars-forward environments capable of rivaling the industrial and technological dynamism of places like Shenzhen by aggressively agglomerating launch infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, AI compute, energy, suppliers, capital, and talent within a network of geographically diverse SEZs.
GOVERNMENTS
COMPANIES
CITIZENS
01 | ORBITAL ACCESS NETWORK
■ High-Cadence Launch INFRA-as-a-ServiceLegacy infrastructure was not designed for the high-cadence demands of space industrialisation or the terrestrial opportunities unlocked by reusable and reliable launch vehicles.
STATUS QUO | AVAILABLE OPTIONSSLOW, EXPENSIVE, CONSTRAINED
TYPICAL LAUNCH INFRAState-owned, slow, budget pressures, political risk
X Indifference toward the launcher’s commercial success
X Built and maintained for infrequent launch
X No dedicated testing facilities
X Expensive, unpredictable pay-per-launch
X No compute
X Isolated, often hard to reach, potentially inhospitable, impractical for sustained campaigns
X No colocation or agglomeration benefits
X Congested, first-come, first-served, slow to no additional capacity
X Offers fixed narrow access to orbits and inclinations
X Time consuming coordination with different launch infra parties to access different inclinations and orbits
X Does not scale off planet
LAUNCHER OWNED INFRAPrivately-owned, fast, no budget pressures, less political risk
X Consumes scarce equity capital better deployed into launch systems and customers
X Distracts leadership from core launch, manufacturing, and mission operations
X Requires years of permitting, infrastructure coordination, and political negotiation
X Duplicates infrastructure, low utilisation
X Locks launch offer into geographically constrained infrastructure
X Scaling cadence requires more CAPEX
X Forces launch companies to solve housing, logistics, and workforce retention independently
X No surge capacity
X Makes airline-scale cadence difficult without broader industrial and urban ecosystems
X Does not scale off planet
■ THERE IS A BETTER WAY
FOUNDATION LAUNCH + 'SHIPYARD' NETWORKPrivately-owned, fast, no budget pressures, no political risk
✓ Converts expensive high CAPEX into affordable OPEX
✓ FOUNDATION Launch market place matches customers with FOUNDATION-based launchers
✓ Org remains focused on core business, not pouring concrete
✓ Built and maintained for high cadence launch
✓ Affordable, predictable contract supports financial planning
✓ Abundant compute via BUTTRESS NETWORK
✓ Co-located with manufacturing capacity, cheap energy, propellant supply, compute, and accommodation
✓ Network access structure provides surge capacity, access to all orbits and inclinations with logistical support
✓ Scaling your footprint or launch vehicle is as easy as leasing another pad
✓ Scales off planet
SMALL LIFT
300 - 2000 kgINCLUDES COMPUTE
SUPER HEAVY
50,000 - 150,000 kg 
FOUNDATION reduces intercontinental travel times for people and goods from 10–20+ hours to under 60–90 minutes by partnering with launch providers and building the infrastructure, industrial systems, and urban corridors required for airline-scale point-to-point rocket mobility.
earth to earth
ENABLING ROCKET MOBILITY, POINT-TO-POINT02 | VERTICALLY INTEGRATED INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY
■ MODERN ARSENALES | MATERIAL-TO-ORBIT, FROM ONE LOCATIONOur modern “Arsenales” or “shipyards” are AI-native, vertically integrated industrial nodes designed to apply the advantages of vertical integration at ecosystem scale. By compressing critical activities into a single urban system, FOUNDATION can structurally reduce the cost, time, and complexity of recursively transforming raw materials into space infrastructure.
MODERN ARSENALES FOR AI + SPACE
■ AI-NATIVE MANUFACTURING CAPACITYOur infrastructure is purpose-built for the high-volume material flows and storage demands of vertically integrated manufacturing, as well as the power density, data throughput (via BUTTRESS), structural loading, and adaptive void spaces required for autonomous industrial production at scale.
■ POWER GRID BUILT FOR RAPID SCALEOur modular, DC-led grid infrastructure is designed for rapid, responsive scaling, supported by a regulatory regime engineered for speed, flexibility, and industrial expansion while maintaining the safeguards required for resilient long-term growth.
■ SOTA SECURITY AND C-UASCOMPANIES
The strategic nature of our infrastructure demands state-of-the-art security, including personnel verification, site-wide sensing with multi-kilometre stand-off ranges, and integrated counter-unmanned aerial system protocols incorporating detection, jamming, and interceptors. Powered by BUTTRESS.
FOUNDATION uses its SEZ status to enable the fastest permitting timelines in the world for GW-scale compute infrastructure. This allows ROMULLUS and our partners to rapidly deploy GW-scale cloud and energy infrastructure designed to support frontier AI training and inference workloads while structurally reducing the time, cost, and complexity of hyperscale compute development.
DEVELOPERS + AI COMPANIES
03 | GW SCALE COMPUTE + RAPID PERMITTING VIA SEZ
■ AI INFRA AT SPEED + SCALE
BUTTRESS GW CLOUD: DATA HALL
Baked into every FOUNDATION city is a simple principle: the long-term success of our civilization depends on its ability to form, raise, and launch capable families. This is as true on Earth as it will be on Mars.
Drawing on the award-winning experience of our leadership team and the research presented in Urban Healthonomics, we recognise that urban form shapes health, productivity, fertility, and long-term economic performance. Cities that are stressful, unaffordable, and socially fragmented, like many across the West today, struggle to sustain family life. Cities that are beautiful, walkable, resilient, and high-trust compound strength across generations.
CITIZENS
04 | ABUNDANT SCI-FI LIVING
■ FAMILIES FIRST“Families First” means building places we would consider good enough for the ROMULLUS team to raise families while designing for the full arc of life:
The conditions for young people to meet, partner, and build a future.
Healthy, affordable homes embedded within walkable neighbourhoods where children can move independently and safely.
Schools, parks, and public spaces that foster resilience, trust, and social cohesion.
Economic opportunity so that when children fly the nest, they can build, invent, and thrive without needing to leave.
A true frontier cannot just accelerate technology. It must also produce stronger families, healthier communities, and more capable generations than the ones that came before them.
■ ABUNDANT SCI-FI LIVING IN FOUNDATIONFAMILIES FIRST
■ ABUNDANT SCI-FI LIVING IN FOUNDATIONMARS GRADE: CLIMATe RESILIENT DESIGN
■ ABUNDANT SCI-FI LIVING IN FOUNDATIONBEAUTY OF VENICE
INSPIRATION OF STARBASE
■ ABUNDANT SCI-FI LIVING IN FOUNDATION
WALKABILITY OF COPENHAGEN
■ ABUNDANT SCI-FI LIVING IN FOUNDATION
HIGH-TRUST OF TOKYO
■ ABUNDANT SCI-FI LIVING IN FOUNDATION
VENETIAN ‘STATO DA MAR’
992-1797 AD■ VENICE‘MULTI-STATE OF THE SEA’ 
05 | BUILDING THE ‘STATO DA MAR’ FOR SPACE
■ A PRIVATE SCHENGEN-ZONE | MEMBERSHIP ACCESS TO ALL RESOURCES IN THE NETWORKThe Venetian City State was able to compete with much larger and more powerful kingdoms for nearly 700 years through its Stato da Màr (“State of the Sea”): a geographically distributed maritime network of cities and territories fitted with Arsenales and operating on a shared commercial, legal, and logistical framework. Its strength came not from a single urban centre, but from the coordinated movement of people, goods, capital, and capability across strategically linked cities.
Venice successfully replicated its Arsenal-and-city model across many territories, including Crete, Corfu, and Zara, creating a network of strategically positioned urban-industrial nodes that reinforced Venetian trade, manufacturing, logistics, innovation, and naval power across the Mediterranean.
FOUNDATION is building a modern “Stato da Màr for Space”: a geographically distributed network of industrial spaceport cities operating on a shared commercial, technological, and logistical framework.
This framework functions as a “Private Schengen Zone,” allowing verified people and businesses to move freely between our cities (on and off-world) while accessing launch, compute, industrial capacity, energy, talent, and capital across multiple jurisdictions.
Like Venice before us, this transforms FOUNDATION from a collection of independent cities into a globally distributed industrial and technological platform, allowing talent, capital, manufacturing, and innovation to dynamically flow to where they are most valuable across the High Frontier.
06 | WESTERN SHENZHENS
■ THE MACHINE, THAT MAKES MACHINES, THAT MAKE MACHINESEnabled by our multi-SEZ operating environment, FOUNDATION cities provide one of the few, Mars-forward regulatory and infrastructural frameworks in the world capable of accelerating (rather than constraining) high-velocity iteration across frontier industries such as AI, robotics, autonomy, aerospace, energy, biotech, and advanced manufacturing.
We believe this regime, combined with the aggressive agglomeration of space access, advanced manufacturing, AI compute, heap energy, suppliers, talent, abundant housing and deep-tech companies, will allow FOUNDATION cities to become Western “Shenzhens” for the AI and space race while recreating the frontier-industrial conditions that enabled Venice to become one of the most innovative and technologically advanced civilizations in history.
large urban colliderS
HOW TO JOIN THE FOUNDATION
■ BUILDING THE HIGH-FRONTIER
GRANITE BUSINESS visa
Apply for membership to access the FOUNDATION NETWORK.
Verified GRANITE BUSINESS VISA holders gain access to private events, industrial opportunities, and, once eligible, business relocation pathways across FOUNDATION cities. Employees of FOUNDATION-registered companies receive automatic access to network resources and are prioritized for relocation services and accommodation. Businesses entering formal infrastructure tenancy agreements are onboarded separately.
MARBLE CITIZEN visa
Apply for membership to access the FOUNDATION NETWORK.
MARBLE CITIZEN VISAS are available to driven individuals, couples, and families seeking to live and build across the FOUNDATION NETWORK.
Approved MARBLE CITIZEN VISA holders will immediately gain access to private events, employment opportunities, and, once possible, relocation pathways across FOUNDATION cities.
Citizens employed by FOUNDATION-registered companies receive automatic network access for the duration of their employment + grace period. While independent applicants will become eligible to relocate to FOUNDATION cities and gain access to a dedicated employment platform listing opportunities across ROMULLUS and FOUNDATION-based businesses.