日经亚洲专访汉翔航空（AIDC）高管：公司称正把业务从飞机制造扩展到反无人机（反制UAS）系统，但全文未披露任何新订单、金额或指引

TAICHUNG, Taiwan -- Taiwan's leading aerospace contractor is rapidly expanding its portfolio beyond traditional aircraft manufacturing and into counter-drone systems, in a sign of alarm in Taipei over China's growing unmanned aircraft system (UAS) capabilities.
"You can see from Iran's experience this time that Saudi Arabia and the other countries across the Strait of Hormuz are constantly being interfered with by drones," said Alex Tsai, senior vice president of Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC). "So it's very important for Taiwan to have a decent counter-UAS system because China is heavily pushing drone development right now."
Tsai sat down with Nikkei Asia at the company's headquarters in Taichung, central Taiwan's aerospace industry hub. At the office, decorated with models of jet trainers and helicopters, he explained how the company's radar platforms and electronic jammer systems are stepping up to create a layer of defense that could fend off China's drones.
The AIDC executive added that this is not just a challenge for Taiwan.
"The whole world believes that traditional air defense systems are a waste against drones, so they must create a dedicated drone defense system, a drone countermeasure system, and have their own radar and other equipment," he said.
Facing China's massive military buildup and increasingly forceful "gray zone" operations short of kinetic war, Taiwan is racing to modernize its defense capabilities, including by drawing lessons from Ukraine and the Middle East. President Lai Ching-te's government has prioritized building a defense-driven drone supply chain, an effort complicated by resistance from the opposition-controlled legislature.
Last month, opposition lawmakers rebuffed Lai's proposal for a special dedicated budget for drones in a key vote, backing their alternative scheme. The plan provides funding but only on a strict annual distribution schedule as part of the regular budget, a setup some critics worry could prove impractical.
At the same time, there are also voices calling for more emphasis and investment in countering China's powerful drone fleets. Beijing regularly highlights its military drones and their integration within the People's Liberation Army.
Drone defense entails detecting, identifying and tracking incoming aircraft before neutralizing them, Tsai said.
"There are soft kill and hard kill methods," he said. "Soft kill uses jamming, spoofing or takeover techniques" to disrupt the GPS and communications of encroaching drones, causing them to lose direction. "A hard kill, on the other hand, is more about destroying it. The simplest way to destroy it is with artillery shells, while more expensive methods use rockets."
As Taiwan's only large-scale aircraft manufacturer, AIDC plays a critical role in national air defense and serves as a link to global aviation giants like Boeing and Airbus. The company spans two industrial complexes in Taichung, with thousands of engineers and a combined total land area of more than 90 hectares.
As of last week, AIDC had a market capitalization of approximately 60.66 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1.9 billion). Trading at about NT$66 as of Monday, the shares are up around 30% year-to-date.
Taiwan is raising its game and watching how Europe and others are approaching the challenge of countering drones. Taiwan's Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET) said in a 2025 newsletter that Europe is emphasizing multilayered counter-drone systems combining sensors, command-and-control networks, and both kinetic and non-kinetic options for taking out targets.
Apart from ADIC, Hsinchu-based Tron Future Tech is another Taiwanese player developing counter-drone systems, DSET noted.
For Taiwan, the key to success in counter-drone systems is cost.
"Your missiles and weapon systems are designed to target high-cost weapons," Tsai said. "This is why countermeasure systems are so important in the current defense posture."
The company is actively researching hard-kill options, which he said "need to be cheap."
Artillery shells are the cheapest but have "accuracy issues," he said. "The second is relatively inexpensive rockets -- not the expensive Patriot rockets, but cheaper ones, which are currently under development. The third is directly using drones to collide with other drones; we call it an interceptor, using drones as interceptors."
Eric Du of the business association United Pacific Innovation Alliance said that Taiwan is preparing a counter-drone environment "characterized by mass, low cost, short warning times, and increasingly resilient drones."
"That means the challenge is not simply intercepting individual UAVs, but sustaining defense against large numbers of reconnaissance, attack, and loitering systems operating across a contested electromagnetic environment," Du told Nikkei Asia.
On drones themselves, AIDC is making inroads.
In July, AIDC in partnership with California-based Shield AI won a contract worth NT$1.2 billion for 12 shipborne unmanned aerial vehicles for Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration, featuring V-BAT vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drones.
The two companies aim to combine Shield AI's autonomous flight software with AIDC's aircraft design, manufacturing and integration expertise "to create a complete ecosystem for advanced unmanned systems," according to a slide from an AIDC investor conference presentation last month, seen by Nikkei Asia.
Taiwan is becoming a significant player in the global drone market, too. Research by DSET recently estimated that Taiwan's drone exports to Europe in the first quarter exceeded the total for all of last year.
Overseas demand is strongest for motors and batteries from Taiwan, as customers seek to reduce reliance on China for these parts, Tsai said, adding that "they are gradually showing interest in flight control boards, AI components and other unique modules."
Cooperation with Japan is also starting to grow, driven by a shared desire to reduce China's supply chain dominance and cost advantages. But Tsai offered a less upbeat assessment of Japan-Taiwan drone ties.
"I haven't felt any change from Japan yet, because they're still very conservative," he said. "Given how close we are, I think there are opportunities" even though cooperation with Japan is slow and lags behind the U.S. or Europe.
He is not giving up hope: "Our countermeasures system is something we really hope to use to enter the Japanese market, so we've hired consulting firms to help."