As China looms, Taiwan makes more drones for defense and the US military - Ars Technica

Overview

As China looms, Taiwan makes more drones for defense and the US militaryvar abtest_2159875 = new ABTest(2159875, 'click');

Taiwan’s drone spending plans for defense could also boost business overseas.

Details

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense proposed a special budget that would spend $6.6 billion over six years on buying drones made in Taiwan, according to the Central News Agency that represents the national news service of Taiwan. Presented on June 18, the budget proposal would allow the government to buy more than 208,000 coastal attack drones, along with more than 1,400 coastal reconnaissance drones and 1,320 uncrewed surface vessels, between 2026 and 2031.

That would be a significant boost to the Taiwanese military arsenal that currently includes just 5,000 US-made attack drones and domestically produced drones, according to Resilience Media. During military exercises in early June, Taiwanese soldiers fired Altius-600 loitering munition drones—made by a subsidiary of the US military technology company Anduril Industries—from towed flatbed launchers to strike offshore targets, according to USNI News. In another exercise earlier this year, Taiwanese Marines used Taiwan-made drones to similarly strike targets at sea.

Beyond bolstering Taiwan’s national defense, Taiwanese government spending on domestically produced drones could provide a critical boost to Taiwanese drone manufacturers. Some Taiwanese companies, notably Thunder Tiger, have pitched their drone technology and components to the US military and European buyers as alternatives to drones made in China, while also establishing international technology and manufacturing partnerships to pave the way for more exports.

Taiwan has already exported

Last year, Thunder Tiger’s Overkill drones became the first from an Asian company to qualify for the Pentagon’s Blue Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Cleared List, which certifies commercial drones for use by the US military. The small, first-person view (FPV) drones cost between

Thunder Tiger has also started producing larger kamikaze drones starting at $30,000 based on the US LUCAS one-way attack drones, Rest of World reported. The LUCAS drones are themselves reverse-engineered versions of Iran’s Shahed drones that have been used in large numbers by both Russia and Iran.

Another one-way attack drone modeled on Israel’s Harpy drone was developed by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), a Taiwanese state-owned corporation, according to the Taiwanese think tank DSET.

Taiwanese companies also export plenty of drone components. For example, Thunder Tiger has been supplying drone components to three companies participating in the US Department of Defense’s $1 billion Drone Dominance Program, according to DSET. Taiwanese companies are also directly supplying flight controllers, batteries, motors, and other drone microelectronics to Ukrainian companies, while Czechia and Poland import tens of thousands of Taiwanese drones that may sometimes be passed on to Ukraine.

In March 2026, Thunder Tiger even expanded its overseas supply chain by establishing a US facility in Ohio capable of producing more than 60,000 drone motors each year, said Gene Su, general manager of Thunder Tiger, in an IEEE Spectrum interview.

Given their focus on hardware manufacturing expertise, Taiwanese drone companies typically turn to US companies and others with more expertise in AI and software. Taiwan’s NCSIST has sought to boost the AI capabilities of its drones by partnering with Western companies such as Anduril, Auterion, and Shield AI, according to DSET. Meanwhile, Thunder Tiger has purchased AI software from Auterion to embed in its broader lineup of drones, ground robots, and sea drones.

The Taiwanese company Ubiqconn Technology also recently teamed up with the US drone company Aero Vironment—best known for making Switchblade loitering munition drones—to embed Aero Vironment’s software into a drone controller platform that would allow the Taiwanese military to operate multiple types of drone systems, Nikkei Asia reported.

However, Taiwan’s homegrown drone ambitions face plenty of challenges, including political disagreement. The special budget proposal for Taiwan’s military to purchase Taiwanese drones represents an attempt to break a political deadlock in Taiwan’s Legislature, where the majority consists of the opposition parties Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party. That majority coalition vetoed funding for domestically produced drones before passing a reduced defense budget bill in May.

Despite having a drone supply chain bolstered by chipmaking and electronics expertise, Taiwan faces an uphill battle in matching the manufacturing output and market dominance of China’s drone industry. The Shenzhen-based drone company DJI alone has between 70 and 80 percent global market share for commercial drones and is known for producing high-quality drones at extremely competitive prices.

“For the international market, how do you persuade other foreign governments to use Taiwanese-made drones two or three times more expensive than DJI’s?” said Ting-Wei Lin, a non-resident fellow at DSET, in a Resilience Media interview.

Taiwanese drone manufacturers are still establishing supply chains completely free of Chinese-made components. Tiger Thunder recently defended its actions in supplying Taiwan’s military with drones that included chips manufactured by the French company STMicroelectronics but packaged in China.

Taiwan is also looking to increase its monthly drone production capacity that currently stands at 15,000 drones per month, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The ministry projects that the Taiwanese drone industry could exceed 100,000 drones per month by 2030.

Some inspiration may come from Ukraine’s example. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine could only produce several thousand FPV drones per year, according to Just Security. By 2025, Ukrainian government and industry efforts had boosted domestic FPV drone production to about 3 million drones—and Ukraine’s defense industry could produce more than 8 million such drones in 2026.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese civil defense groups are also taking a cue from Ukraine’s example and offering more lessons in flying drones, The Guardian reported. Because, despite the recent wartime demonstrations of AI-powered battlefield drones, most drones still rely heavily on human operators one way or another.

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Key Takeaways

• As China looms, Taiwan makes more drones for defense and the US militaryvar abtest_2159875 = new ABTest(2159875, 'click');

• Taiwan’s drone spending plans for defense could also boost business overseas

• Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense proposed a special budget that would spend $6

• That would be a significant boost to the Taiwanese military arsenal that currently includes just 5,000 US-made attack drones and domestically produced drones, according to Resilience Media

• Beyond bolstering Taiwan’s national defense, Taiwanese government spending on domestically produced drones could provide a critical boost to Taiwanese drone manufacturers