Cutting-edge AI and bold international partnerships are reshaping Taiwan’s role in the global security landscape at Taipei’s largest-ever defense showcase.

BY JULIA BERGSTRÖM AND ALEX MYSLINSKI

Amid intensifying regional security challenges, the 17th Taipei Aerospace & Defense Technology Exhibition (TADTE) underscored Taiwan’s growing role as both a hub for defense innovation and a partner in global security cooperation.

The three-day show at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center brought together a record 490 companies from 15 countries across 1,500 booths, according to organizer Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA).

Organized around the themes of Advanced Defense, Green Aviation, Resilient Supply Chains, and Unmanned Evolution, the exhibition emphasized two priorities that now define Taiwan’s defense agenda: scaling indigenous capability and deepening international industrial ties. The Ministry of National Defense (MND) Pavilion took center stage with large-platform displays, while the Taiwan Space Pavilion presented the technology chain spanning satellite design, 5G/B5G communications, and energy management.

A headline attraction was the MND’s first public display in Taiwan of the M1A2T Abrams tank and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) — symbolic of the island’s broader modernization. TAITRA said the Asia UAV AI Innovation Application R&D Center fielded a 21-company cluster, while national pavilions highlighted supply-chain depth across domains, from undersea systems to space.

Partnerships in practice

Industrial collaboration framed much of the conversation. Taiwan and U.S. industry showcased their first jointly developed missile, the Barracuda-500, designed by Anduril and slated for local mass production via the military-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST). The launch is part of a broader push for co-development and technology transfer, Reuters reported. NCSIST planned to sign multiple contracts and memorandums of understanding with American and Canadian companies during the show, the newswire added.

European participation, historically muted, also stepped into the light. Stronger European profile included a notable Czech and German presence and expanded showcases by European aerospace and security companies, a shift they linked to post-Ukraine recalibration and growing comfort with Taiwan collaboration.

American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Deputy Director Karin Lang told local media at the opening ceremony that the U.S. pavilion had doubled in size compared with 2023, with more than 40 companies exhibiting this year. The show overall grew from 275 exhibitors and about 960 booths in 2023 to 490 exhibitors and 1,500 booths in 2025.

The expanded USA Partnership Pavilion — organized this year by Kallman Worldwide — served as a curated hub for majority American defense and aerospace technologies, complementing AIT’s convening role in 2023. Trade-show sources and industry coverage described the pavilion’s structured amenities, networking programs, and exhibitor services as designed to catalyze deal-making and streamline government-industry engagement on the floor.

Scott Roberts, corporate vice president of the Asia Pacific Region at L3Harris Technologies, says the pavilion’s centralized footprint meaningfully improves connectivity.

“It’s a combination of networking, marketing, and exhibiting new capabilities, all in one venue,” he says. “To us, it’s a good way to create engagement across the board — not just with customers and all parts of the armed forces here in Taiwan, but also with international partners.”

Roberts adds that the surge in senior-level traffic this year from both the United States and Taiwan translated into deeper, more substantive conversations at the L3Harris booth, where officials flew in aircraft demonstrators and reviewed integrated capability portfolios spanning uncrewed undersea and surface systems (autonomous vessels), special-mission aircraft, and space-imaging platforms (satellite surveillance tools).

“In addition to our platform and product capabilities, when you tie those to our resilient communication systems, we are the fabric that connects virtually every platform in use by armed forces around the world,” he says, describing the company’s global positioning.

The emphasis on supply-chain resilience ran through U.S. and allied messaging. Reuters cited expectations that Taiwan will spend up to US$60 billion on defense in the coming years, with a significant share of procurement tied to international companies — mainly from the United States — as joint manufacturing and localization efforts accelerate. TAITRA’s program reinforced that point, with more than 140 buyers from 30 countries registered for one-on-one meetings to formalize partnerships.

Parallel to the industry showcases, TADTE’s forums pulled in global thought leaders. Coverage in defense trade outlets highlighted the International Space Forum’s focus on resilient communications and security in orbit, and the International Unmanned Vehicle Forum’s cross-regional panel featuring the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) leadership and European and Asian industry associations. Michael Robbins, AUVSI president and CEO, publicly noted his participation in a U.S. delegation meeting with Taiwan’s Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim during TADTE, stressing the show’s role as a platform for policy-industry dialogue.

Outside the venue, however, attention shifted to the Middle East, when a group of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on September 20. The protesters highlighted Taiwan’s role as a contract manufacturer in the global defense supply chain and urged greater transparency and oversight of how such products are used abroad. Their calls centered on ensuring that Taiwan’s contributions to international partnerships align with broader expectations of accountability in overseas conflicts.

Newcomers enter the market

If the USA Pavilion represented the breadth of traditional and next-generation systems, Shield AI emerged as a focal point of the show’s autonomy narrative.

Founded in 2015 by former U.S. Navy SEAL Brandon Tseng, his brother Ryan Tseng, and engineer Andrew Reiter, Shield AI develops AI pilots and autonomous systems designed to operate when GPS and communications are denied — conditions increasingly prevalent in modern conflict.

“We are building the world’s best AI pilot and proliferating it,” says Brandon Tseng, Shield AI president. “The easiest way to think about an AI pilot is as self-driving technology for uncrewed systems. It enables drones to operate without GPS or communications and to execute missions completely autonomously.”

Tseng argues that this is not a futuristic edge case but the main event. “Personally, I don’t think anyone should buy a weapon system that doesn’t work when GPS is jammed,” he says, citing operational experience in Ukraine, where electronic warfare routinely reduces the effectiveness of legacy, GPS-dependent systems to low double- or single-digit success rates. He warns that Taiwan can face similar conditions in both peacetime probing and wartime scenarios.

Against that backdrop, Tseng frames Taiwan’s most urgent capability gap as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) — tools that collect and analyze battlefield information.

“Intelligence drives operations,” he says, recalling a maxim popularized by retired U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal. “You need intelligence to know where to employ weapons systems and when not to employ them. That is the number one gap we fill with V-BAT.”

V-BAT combines vertical takeoff and landing with a small logistical footprint and resilience in contested environments. Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy stack (its artificial intelligence system for autonomous flight) enables “swarming and teaming” (coordinated missions by multiple drones without remote pilots), allowing large numbers of uncrewed systems to execute missions cooperatively. Company background materials emphasize V-BAT’s and Hivemind’s deployment across U.S. and partner forces in real-world conflict zones.

Shield AI’s presence at TADTE was not a quick sales stopover but a deliberate stake in the market. Tseng says the company opened a Taipei office recently and has already engaged eight key local suppliers, bringing its supply-chain leadership to TADTE to deepen those partnerships.

“We want Taiwan industry to join our whole supply chain,” he says. He also describes Hivemind Enterprise — an autonomy-development product designed to let local drone makers build their own AI on top of Shield AI’s toolchain without investing “billions” in infrastructure.

As Taiwan explores building a large drone force, Tseng sees an opportunity to empower the domestic ecosystem. “We want to help all those companies build autonomy rapidly and at low cost,” he says, adding that Shield AI’s software-first profile makes it a nimble complement to larger primes in the U.S. pavilion rather than a competitor.

What makes Taiwan compelling to the company is not only market potential but also relevance to bilateral collaboration. “We are able to provide value and continue to learn and iterate with the customer, which is Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense,” says Tseng. “The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is also going to learn a lot from working with Shield AI and the Taiwanese together.”

Democratic supply chain

TAITRA framed TADTE 2025 as a bridge between Taiwan’s established industrial strengths — semiconductors, ICT, and precision manufacturing — and  next-generation defense, with drones and autonomy at the center of its supply chain narrative.

The exhibition’s messaging on supply-chain resilience carried through to concrete outcomes. Reuters reported that Taiwan planned to ink agreements with U.S. and Canadian companies during the show. At the same time, industry briefings highlighted emerging opportunities in anti-drone systems, underwater surveillance, and space-based communications. TAITRA’s post-show wrap echoed those themes, calling 2025 the show’s largest edition and highlighting the mix of national pavilions, procurement meetings, and technical forums designed to sustain momentum beyond the exhibition halls.

For U.S. exhibitors, the pavilion’s scale and structure created a more efficient marketplace. “Having these companies together is a game-changer,” says Roberts of L3Harris. He credits the collaboration between AIT and Kallman Worldwide for combining high-level government convening with seasoned trade-show execution. “Overall, it has been a great show,” he says.

The pavilion’s program, which included briefings, networking events, and an on-floor “meeting point,” aimed to translate interest into pipeline. Trade-show documentation describes Kallman’s pavilion model as a full-service business hub designed to maximize exhibitor exposure and streamline on-site problem-solving with organizers, contractors, and government liaisons.

Beyond the U.S. footprint, regional diversification is accelerating. Taipei Times pointed to Germany’s first-time presence and a more assertive Central-Eastern European profile signaling broader willingness to engage despite historic caution about Beijing’s reaction. India’s space start-ups also used TADTE to court Taiwanese partners in defense and intelligence services, the newspaper added.

On the home front, TAITRA and the MND used the show to project capability and confidence. In addition to headline platforms such as Abrams and HIMARS, Taiwan’s state-owned shipbuilder CSBC and the indigenous submarine program drew crowds, according to TAITRA’s opening-day summary.

The broader message: Taiwan aims to combine selective co-production with foreign partners and targeted domestic programs to build a layered deterrence, while embedding itself more deeply in U.S.-led and like-minded supply chains.

Shield AI’s Tseng frames that strategy as both prudent and urgent. “It is about a thousand times cheaper, in terms of both treasure and blood, to make the investments now that deter an adversary rather than to go into a conflict,” he says. “Taiwan is not only talking the talk, but walking the walk — putting in the money, the resources, and doing what needs to be done. What they will see in return is companies like Shield AI leaning in heavily with them. We couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to support Taiwan.”