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ARRIS Invests USD 20 Million in Taiwan to Advance Carbon Fiber Manufacturing
ARRIS Composites, a Silicon Valley-based advanced manufacturing company, announced on August 27, 2025, that it has invested more than USD 20 million in Taiwan. The company has established a production facility in Taoyuan that will serve as the foundation of its global manufacturing strategy. ARRIS has developed a process it calls Additive Molding, which combines advanced design software, recyclable thermoplastic composites, and high-pressure molding. This process reduces waste, enables recycling, and makes it possible to mass-produce lightweight and high-strength parts that were once limited to small-batch production.
A Nature-Inspired Breakthrough in Carbon Fiber
For more than fifty years, carbon fiber products have been made using woven patterns and thermoset resins. These methods limit scalability, generate large amounts of waste, and create products that cannot be recycled. ARRIS created Additive Molding to change this.
“Our inspiration came from nature,” explained Riley Reese, Chief Executive Officer of ARRIS Composites. “The fibers in a tree grow from the trunk into the branches, carrying strength in the most efficient way possible. We wanted to bring that principle into material science.”
ARRIS integrates design, materials, and manufacturing into a single platform. Its simulation software maps fiber alignment to stress, its proprietary thermoplastic composites behave like recyclable water bottles rather than permanent resins, and its high-speed molding process consolidates the final part in one step. Together these advances eliminate manual layering, reduce waste, and deliver record strength-to-weight performance at industrial scale.
From Tour de France to Scaled Production in Taiwan
ARRIS proved its technology on the world stage at the 2025 Tour de France, where Specialized introduced the Roval CLX wheelset with ARRIS carbon fiber spokes. These spokes were 60 percent lighter and 20 percent stronger than leading metal alternatives, giving riders a measurable performance advantage.
“We wanted to demonstrate the potential of our technology, so we created a product ourselves,” said Bert Mannhalter, Vice President of Research and Development at ARRIS Composites. “The spoke was the ideal test case. Each spoke is so strong that in our testing it could hold up to 1,000 pounds, nearly the weight of a motorcycle. Today we are producing more than one million spokes at our Taiwan facility.”
A major innovation was the way ARRIS engineered the connection between carbon composites and titanium end fittings. The company developed a proprietary interface layer that ensures reliable load transfer between the two materials, a detail that is critical for both safety and performance. This advance gave Specialized riders a competitive edge in France, contributing to four stage victories and a third-place overall finish.
Taiwan at the Center of ARRIS’s Global Strategy
ARRIS was founded in 2017 and decided in 2020 to establish its primary manufacturing operations in Taiwan. The Taoyuan factory officially opened in 2021. According to Reese, the decision was guided by two factors: intellectual property protection and the depth of Taiwan’s engineering ecosystem.
“Taiwan has world-class engineers and a strong culture of IP protection,” Reese said. “When product safety and performance are critical, especially in industries such as cycling or aerospace, we know we can rely on Taiwan’s manufacturing culture.”
To date, ARRIS has filed more than 65 patents, with over 40 already granted, and continues to expand its intellectual property portfolio. While the U.S. headquarters focuses on research and development, Taiwan has become the hub for material production, product manufacturing, and onboarding new partners.
Building on its success in cycling, ARRIS is now expanding into footwear, transportation, consumer electronics, and next-generation AR and VR devices. As Reese noted, “The smartphone industry has already moved from aluminum to steel and then to titanium. The next step will require something lighter and stronger, and that is where our technology will play a central role.”
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