Today (23rd), the "Taiwan Excellence Drone Overseas Business Alliance" held its pledge conference. The alliance chairman and Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) Chairman Hu Kai-hung promised to focus on international cooperation, aligning with policy directions to lead alliance members in building a drone supply chain and seizing overseas opportunities. The goal is to achieve a tenfold increase in Taiwan's drone output by 2028 and to become the first democratic drone supply chain center in the Asia-Pacific region. This major opportunity, initiated by the government, took a crucial first step today.

The pledge conference was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, alliance members, domestic businesses, and research institutions such as the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Minister of Economic Affairs Jyh-Huei Kuo stated that developing drones is a global trend, and forming a national team to pool resources is the best opportunity. In the future, the alliance will represent Taiwan in pursuing government-to-government (G2G) international market orders. The Ministry will fully support the alliance's development by providing necessary R&D grants and financial assistance to address challenges in the R&D and integration processes.

ITRI President Edwin Liu also indicated that ITRI's role is to assist in core technology development while meeting market needs, stating, "The industry poses questions; we seek answers." Additionally, ITRI will assist the alliance in market entry strategies, such as analyzing international trends. Therefore, interaction and communication among alliance members are crucial, and ITRI will assign dedicated personnel to participate in monthly alliance meetings.

The alliance consists of over 50 member companies. Besides AIDC, the co-chairmen include MiTAC Advance Technology Corp., AirAsia, Thunder Tiger Corp., Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC), GEOSAT Aerospace & Technology Inc., EVENGREEN AVIATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP., and the Qisda Group, which will also lead the industry's advancement.

Hu Kai-hung emphasized that while the global drone market is thriving, it remains an emerging industry domestically. Although many companies are involved, they tend to be smaller in scale and relatively lacking in system integration capabilities. AIDC has long executed R&D projects for military and civilian aircraft, with "system integration" being one of its strengths. AIDC is confident in making key contributions in the drone field, helping all companies leverage their strengths to first establish a domestic economic scale and create "short chains" and "resilience," ultimately forming a solid national team.

In the early stages of the alliance, monthly meetings will be held, hosted in rotation by the seven co-chair companies to deepen communication. Additionally, assessing the capabilities of each company is viewed as an important task. Hu Kai-hung emphasized that this capability assessment is not about uncovering trade secrets but rather about integrating and complementing each other's strengths and weaknesses. "Division of labor" is a crucial function of this alliance.

Hu Kai-hung stated that AIDC will act as a liaison with foreign drone manufacturers, playing a coordination role and thoroughly discussing with alliance members based on each company's core technologies to improve the success rate in securing international business and matching optimal order combinations.

Source：Liberty Time