Xi Jinping

Taiwan is a country in East Asia, which is small in size. Only 35,980 square kilometers. On the other hand, China’s area is 9.59 million square kilometers, i.e. Taiwan is about 267 times smaller than that. The population difference is also shocking—whereas Taiwan has about 23.6 million people, China has more than 1.4 billion people. But despite being so small, Taiwan is not shying away from showing its eyes to China. Tension is increasing and meanwhile Taiwan has taken a big step and increased the drone budget.

In the coming years, the Taiwan Army will spend more than 1 billion New Taiwan Dollars (about $32 million) just on making drones and unmanned systems. It is believed that this step will strengthen Taiwan’s strategy, in which the emphasis is on creating more power at less expense. Let us know what kind of drones Taiwan is preparing to make?

Drones that can operate without GPS will be ready

Taiwan plans to spend approximately NT$1.01 billion between 2026 and 2028. NT$507 million will be invested in the first year alone. The goal of this project is to free drones from dependence on GPS, make them jamming-proof and develop high-density battery technology. Taiwan knows that GPS systems can be targeted in the event of any military tension with China. In such a situation, these new capabilities will make its drone system much more effective.

Under this project, resources of ministries and universities will be combined, unmanned aerial, surface and underwater systems will be developed within the country, a large drone R&D and manufacturing cluster will be set up. Next year, special attention will be given to testing of underwater surveillance systems, low-earth orbit (LEO) based positioning technology and production of large composite materials.

Lessons learned from Ukraine-Russia war

Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Ku said that the Russia-Ukraine war showed the world that drones can change the face of modern warfare. For this reason, the army’s focus is now on such drones which are low cost and can be produced quickly in large numbers. They will be included in joint military exercises from next year.

Race to end dependence on China

Taiwan’s biggest concern is that China has dominance over many important parts of drones, that is why Taiwan is creating a non-red supply chain. The target is to increase domestic production to NT$40 billion by 2030. The entire unmanned systems ecosystem is being built with a budget of NT$44.2 billion over 6 years. The government will purchase about 50,000 civil and government drones and 48,750 military drones in the next three years.