Taiwan is opening a new military drone research site and breaking ground on a linked industrial park, a push to build a defense supply chain that does not rely on China.

• President Lai Ching-te will preside over the opening of the Minxiong campus and the groundbreaking of the aerospace and drone industrial park on the 28th.
• The campus can already build and test prototype drones, with labs for airframes, engines, flight controls, structural checks, heavy-rain simulation and full-aircraft testing.
• The goal is a "non-red supply chain" — drone parts and know-how sourced outside China, for both safety and resilience.
• The new park will run on digital engineering, wired directly into Taiwan's national supercomputing center and built with France's Dassault Systèmes.
• Frontline troops, industry, government and universities are meant to feed requirements into one place, from design through outdoor test flights.

Outlook: Taiwan wants this cluster to become a defense-tech anchor like its chip industry, giving local drone makers a full path from design to flight testing.