Anduril increases Indo-Pacific footprint with Taiwan, South Korea partnerships

MELBOURNE — American defense tech company Anduril has expanded its footprint in the Indo-Pacific with tie-ups in Taiwan and South Korea, the company has announced.

It also announced that it has also delivered the first tranche of Altius loitering munitions to Taiwan, six months after signing the contract with the self-governing island.

Anduril said in a press release on Tuesday it would be opening Anduril Taiwan, a new office to support engineering, supply chain, and program execution in Taiwan and throughout the region, as well as expanding its collaboration with Taiwan’s state-owned defense reseatch institute. This is through a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) focusing on AI-enabled command and control and unmanned systems.

The company said the partnership has already produced two demonstrations integrating Anduril’s Lattice AI platform with NCSIST systems, which will feature in a live-fire exercise later this month.

Meanwhile, Anduril said the quick delivery of the Altius loitering munitions is a demonstration of what is possible when industry and government work together, adding that it was made possible by collaboration across Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense and US government stakeholders.

“Anduril is committed to supporting Taiwan and our allies across the Indo-Pacific with the technology they need to deter aggression and preserve stability,” said founder Palmer Luckey, who was in Taiwan for the announcement.

NCSIST has also previously signed an MoU with Auterion to integrate swarming technology into a variety of unmanned platforms that are being developed in conjunction with local industry. Taiwan plans to manufacture 15,000 unmanned systems for use across the air, land, and sea domains by 2028.

The island sees the use of unmanned systems as a key plank of its asymmetric defense strategy to counter a potential Chinese invasion. China views the island as part of its territory and its government as a rogue administration, and has vowed to reincorporate Taiwan into the mainland by force if necessary.

The US State Department had only approved the sale of 291 Altius 600Ms in an arms sales package June 2024, although the actual contract signing date was never announced. The package also included the potential sale of 720 Aerovironment Switchblade 300 loitering munitions.

According to Anduril, the Altius is an autonomous, long-endurance loitering munition designed for surveillance and precision strike with its modular design able to support a wide range of operational roles.

Elsewhere in the region, Anduril announced on Thursday plans to expand its presence in South Korea by opening a new office in the capital Seoul, as well as signing a new contract with Korean Air’s Aerospace Business Division.

The contract will see both companies co-develop unmanned aircraft products, explore the potential for a manufacturing and production facility in South Korea and for Korean Air to license produce Anduril products for the Indo-Pacific region, the American firm said.

Korean Air, which also manufactures its own unmanned aircraft systems, said in its announcement of the partnership with Anduril that it expects to accelerate the advancement of its systems through this partnership.

“This collaboration will enhance our capabilities and represents a significant milestone in the global unmanned systems market.” said Korean Air Senior Vice-President and Head its Aerospace Business Jin Kyu Lim.