When we said the Anduril empire was expanding, we didn’t necessarily mean to the Indo-Pacific, but here we are.
Yesterday, the defense tech giant (and newly-minted SRM supplier) announced that it’s officially opening a Taiwan office, teaming up with local partners including the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), and speeding up delivery of autonomous systems to the island.
In a visit to Taiwan to mark the launch, Anduril founder (and sometimes robot) Palmer Luckey certainly had an eye on 2027.
“Taiwan needs defense capabilities now, not years from now,” he said during a keynote at National Taiwan University, “Anduril is committed to supporting Taiwan and our allies across the Indo-Pacific with the technology they need to deter aggression and preserve stability.”
The company also delivered its first tranche of Altius attack drones to the country this week, part of a larger Taiwanese-US drone procurement deal inked late last year.
All over the map: In case you’ve been living under a rock (or not reading our newsletter), Anduril has made some major global moves this year.
- In March, the UK MoD awarded Anduril a £30 million ($40M) contract to deliver Altius drones to Ukraine.
- In June, Anduril announced a partnership with Rheinmetall to develop European versions of its Fury unmanned fighter and Barracuda cruise missile.
- Also in June, the company announced a planned expansion to Poland to localize drone production.
Under control: While Anduril did not specify exactly what autonomous systems would be delivered to the island in the future, it does seem that a pretty central part of the work in Taiwan will be focused on the company’s C2 system, Lattice.
- Anduril has signed an MoU with NCSIST “focused on AI-enabled command and control and unmanned systems.”
- The company has already integrated Lattice onto systems produced by the institute and will carry out a live-fire demo next month.
- Luckey said in his visit to the island that they’ll lean on local engineering talent, in particular, to speed up development of defense systems for the island.
“Taiwan has incredible engineering talent and world-class defense research. Working side by side, we can integrate AI, autonomy, and advanced systems at a speed that matches the threats we face,” he said.
The race to 2027: Anduril isn’t the only defense company that has teamed up with Taiwan to beef up defenses ahead of a potential fight with China.
- Auterion signed a deal with NCSIST in June to integrate the company’s autonomy and drone swarming software onto Taiwanese autonomous systems.
- In April, 11 US firms, including Firestorm, Neros, Skydio, and HavocAI were added to China’s “unreliable entities list” and sanctioned for alleged military cooperation with Taiwan.
- Primes like RTX, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop have all long sold weapons to the ROC, also leading to some fun sanctions from China.
The US government authorized more than $28B in foreign military sales (FMS) to Taiwan from 2015 to 2025. And that support doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere: The HASC and SASC versions of the FY26 NDAA both call for $1B in support for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as does the president’s FY26 budget request.