SINGAPORE: U.S. drone producers are stepping up efforts to win prospects throughout Asia, pitching combat-proven expertise to regional militaries more and more centered on countering China’s increasing army capabilities.
Several American drone corporations made their first appearances on the Singapore Airshow this week, aiming to diversify past Pentagon contracts and faucet demand from international locations reassessing their defence methods amid rising geopolitical tensions within the Pacific.
The battlefield impression of drones in Russia’s struggle in Ukraine, used extensively by either side, has accelerated funding in army synthetic intelligence and unmanned methods, lifting the profiles and valuations of U.S. corporations comparable to Anduril Industries and Shield AI.
That surge of curiosity is reshaping the character of main air exhibits historically dominated by business plane and crewed fighter jets. Drones starting from palm-sized quadcopters designed for kamikaze strikes to unmanned fighter plane at the moment are central points of interest for army commanders, politicians, intelligence officers, and defence executives.
While most drones deployed by Ukraine are domestically produced, corporations together with Anduril, Shield AI, El Segundo, California-based Neros Technologies, and Virginia-headquartered AeroVironment have provided Kyiv with weapons.
Those corporations at the moment are searching for to persuade defence forces in Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, and Japan that their early battlefield publicity — coupled with preliminary backing from the U.S. Department of Defense — positions them to ship methods able to working in a contested surroundings as China expands its army presence within the area.
“They’re looking for the ability to conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance operations while GPS and communications are jammed … it’s what we’re offering to a number of different countries in the region,” Shield AI co-founder Brandon Tseng instructed Reuters on the Singapore present.
Shield AI introduced on the occasion that it’ll provide Singapore’s ST Engineering with Hivemind, its AI autonomy software program suite for unmanned methods. The firm’s 9-foot-long (2.7-metre) V-BAT reconnaissance drone, which prices roughly US$700,000, has logged lots of of operational hours in Ukraine.
Asia Offices Opening up
Anduril, which holds a number of Pentagon contracts and was valued at $30 billion in a non-public fundraising spherical final yr, opened workplaces in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan in 2025. It has already secured gross sales of its Altius loitering munition drones to Taiwan.
Alongside smaller drones, Anduril and Shield AI displayed fashions of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) — stealth-styled “loyal wingman” drones designed to function alongside next-generation crewed fighters. The plane are anticipated to value round $30 million per unit.
Major U.S. defence contractors, together with Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, are additionally creating CCA platforms.
Neros, which has a U.S. Marine Corps contract for its Archer quadcopter assault drone, plans to ascertain manufacturing services in South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Japan, in response to its Asia development lead, Kenneth Inocencio. The aim is to construct stockpiles of expendable drones supposed to overwhelm Chinese forces in a possible Taiwan Strait battle.
“Imagine you’re a (Chinese) trooper. You’re about to board your landing craft … 5 kilometres (3 miles) away, your landing craft gets hit by 30 Neros Archers. Some of them (listed below) are below the water line. Your landing craft sinks like a few kilometres away from the beach,” Inocencio instructed Reuters.
Neros can produce as much as 200 drones per day at its manufacturing unit in El Segundo and, final yr, gained a contract from a coalition of nations to provide 6,000 Archer drones to Ukraine.
Red Cat, which is able to provide the U.S. Army with its Black Widow short-range reconnaissance quadcopter, stated on the Singapore Airshow that it had obtained an order from an unnamed Asia-Pacific nation.
“Because of regional conflicts and uncertainty with China and their intentions, a lot of Asia-Pacific allies are tooling up, a handful of them in a big way,” stated Stayne Hoff, Red Cat’s Asia-Pacific director of enterprise growth.
