Taiwan opens new military drone campus, breaks ground on NT$6.9 billion drone industrial park
TLDR
- Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te opened a new military drone research and production campus and broke ground on an adjacent drone industrial park, both in Chiayi County, on 28 September.1
- The campus, run by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), represents an NT$1.1 billion (about $35 million) investment; the adjacent industrial park is a nearly NT$6.9 billion (about $220 million) project targeted for completion in 2028.1
- Taiwan's drone industry produced NT$12.9 billion (about $411 million) in value in 2025, more than 2.5 times the prior year, with over 267 companies now involved in drone component or systems-integration work.1
- Taiwan's complete-drone exports rose from $4.41 million in 2024 to $212 million in the first half of 2026, per the Ministry of Economic Affairs.1
- Lai is pushing lawmakers to approve a supplemental defence budget of nearly NT$60 billion (about $1.9 billion) partly earmarked for domestic drone purchases.1
Taiwan opened a new drone research and production campus and broke ground on a nearby industrial park on 28 September, as President Lai Ching-te pushes to scale the island's drone industry from prototypes into full production.1 Both sites are in Minxiong, Chiayi County, and sit alongside an existing Asia UAV AI Innovation centre in nearby Taibao and a coastal unmanned-vehicle testing site.1
The new campus, operated by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), represents an investment of more than NT$1.1 billion (roughly $35 million) in testing, R&D and systems-integration facilities.1 The adjacent industrial park, a nearly NT$6.9 billion (about $220 million) project targeted for completion in 2028, is meant to shift the island's drone capacity "from research and component production to larger-scale production of complete systems," according to the reporting.1 Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs separately plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (about $1.4 billion) in the drone industry between 2025 and 2030.1
The industry has grown quickly: Taiwan's drone sector produced NT$12.9 billion (about $411 million) in value in 2025, more than 2.5 times the previous year's level, with more than 267 companies now working on drone systems integration or component manufacturing, Lai said.1 Complete-drone exports jumped from $4.41 million in 2024 to $212 million in the first half of 2026, according to a July Ministry of Economic Affairs statement.1 Lai is also pressing lawmakers to approve a supplemental defence budget of nearly NT$60 billion (about $1.9 billion), part of which is earmarked for drone purchases from domestic manufacturers.1 "Asian center for democratic drone supply chains" is how Lai described Taiwan's ambition for the sector, in a Facebook post after the event.1
Why it matters: Taiwan is trying to build a domestic drone supply chain fast enough to matter for its own defence, at a moment when China's proximity and Taiwan's own reliance on imported components have both been flagged as vulnerabilities.