Taiwan has conducted preliminary tests on launching an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from an attack unmanned surface vessel (USV), according to Taiwanese press reports.
On 6 August the Liberty Times reported that Taiwan’s Kuaiqi USV and Jingfeng UAV featured together in anti-surface vessel targeting tests carried out that day on the east coast of the island’s southern Hengchun Peninsula, located in Pingtung County. The next day the masthead published a picture of one of the USV’s fitted with what are claimed to be Jingfeng launching tubes, along with reports that UAVs were launched from a USV during the exercise.
The Kuaiqi and Jingfeng, both of which were born from projects led by Taiwan’s state-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), have been touted as cutting-edge additions to Taiwan’s drone arsenal.
The Kuaiqi tender, which began as an NCSIST project to develop a shallow draught, high speed unmanned kamikaze vessel, was recently awarded to Taiwanese shipbuilder Lungteh, which is thus far on track to deliver its order of three vessels this year.
The Jingfeng is a light tube-launched, man-portable kamikaze attack and surveillance drone modeled off AeroVironment’s Switchblade miniature loitering munition. On 31 July Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence announced plans to acquire 30 drone/launcher sets at a cost of NTD3.84 million (just under $200,000), with larger orders predicted.
Joint tests on these advanced platforms also comes on the back of a series of other developments in drone research and capability acquisitions on the island.
In July Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence (MND) announced upcoming tenders valued up to a total of NTDD50 billion ($2.6 billion) for around 50,000 new drones to be delivered within two years, in what has been called “Taiwan’s largest drone procurement in history.”
On 17 June, German-American drone software developer Auterion signed a deal with NCSIST to integrate software solutions, including opening access to its AuterionOS, for a new generation of drones being co-developed by NCSIST and Taiwanese firms – a partnership which Auterion CEO Lorenz Meier said could play a part in the production of “millions of drones… over multiple years.” Auterion has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with leading Taiwanese drone technology firm Thunder Tiger RC Tech to provide software solutions for the latter’s aerial and surface drones.
And in August last year the MND announced manufacturing contracts worth NTD$7 billion (AUD$360 million) for “commercial grade, military use” drones to four domestic companies: Evergreen Aviation Technologies Corp, Taiwan UAV, MiTAC and Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC).
The flurry to develop the nation’s drone capabilities comes after the island has faced pressure from Washington to adapt its asymmetric strategy in line with evolving US warfare doctrines. Taiwanese press has in particular linked growing investments in drone capabilities with the US’s Replicator initiative – which plans to increase deterrence, and the cost of hostile military action, by flooding theatres such as the Taiwan Strait with “masses of uncrewed systems which… can be changed, updated, or improved with substantially shorter lead times.”
There are doubts, however, as to whether Taiwan, whose defence industry lacks global industry powerhouses, has the technological, manpower and surplus manufacturing capacity to meet these demands. Fueling these concerns are pilot shortfalls, with defence force drone training programs beset by low enrolment and high failure rates.
Yet Taiwan has also seen rapid progress in the drone industry, with Taipei viewing the challenge of addressing these strategic challenges as a potential opportunity for the island’s economy, and for the nation to expand its role into global supply chains for critical military and dual use technologies.
In the first half of 2025 Taiwan saw a more than 700 per cent increase in drone exports, driving by a mixture of the nation’s ICT strengths and adaptive manufacturing sector, as well as many democratic nations’ efforts to find alternatives to Chinese supply chains.
The rise also came on the back of growing government support for the sector in the form of state investment, non-financial subsidies and generous state tenders – including a series of tenders for a total of 50,000 drones for government departments other than the MND, including the Ministry of Agriculture.
In 2022 Taiwan established the Asia UAV AI Innovation Application R&D Centre, and in the same year began interdepartmental work to develop dual-use and “commercial grade, military use” drone research and manufacturing capacities.
Developing Taiwan’s military drone production capacity is also the core objective of the Taiwanese government’s 2024-announced plan to transform the island’s defence industry into one of the five trusted industries for raising national resilience, reorganising supply chains, and resisting the country’s geopolitical marginalisation, with the government aiming for a ten-fold increase in military-use drone production capacity by 2028, reaching a value of NTD$30 billion (AUD$1.5 billion).