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Sep 15
Swiss drone maker shifts production to Taiwan

Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corporation (SSFC) is working with Swiss drone company Jedsy through its investment in Earthbook, bringing in a medical logistics service that has won approval from Taiwan's Civil Aviation Administration and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Jedsy also plans to increase investment in Taiwan and is reportedly preparing to move its main production base from Europe to Taiwan.

The broader high-tech landscape has wondered for years about the subtle transactions and movements unfolding underneath the enormous technology ecosystem Elon Musk has stitched together amid a rapidly expanding business reach across AI-driven industries.
China's rare earth export controls are changing the rules governing global critical mineral supply chains. For Taiwan, the real concern is not that China could suddenly halt all exports one day, but that export licensing, end-use reviews, price volatility, longer lead times, and "hidden dependencies" embedded in intermediate materials and components could gradually raise the cost and uncertainty of maintaining normal production.
Two Beyond 5G low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites being developed by the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) under a National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) program, along with four LEO communications satellites awarded to Wistron and Compal Electronics under an NT$1.178 billion (approx. US$37 million) contract, will not be ready in time to meet the government's communications resilience requirements for 2027.
Starlink's enormous low-Earth-orbit (LEO) footprint has long cast a shadow over the broader aerospace industry, turning satellite broadband into a race defined as much by constellation scale as by network performance.

Much of the industry attention surrounding AI infrastructure buildouts is now inextricably tied to sheer compute power, with market dominance or competitiveness defined largely by the highest-performing GPUs or the fastest construction.

A pioneering cohort of space startups is betting that the key to unlocking next-generation technology lies off Earth. Armed with millions in private capital and backing, these ventures are leveraging the unique conditions of low Earth orbit to manufacture semiconductor materials and pharmaceutical compounds with degrees of purity and structural perfection that can be difficult or impossible to achieve on Earth.

Foreign drone makers are increasingly turning to Taiwan as a hub for non-China drone supply chains, drawn by the island's component strengths and the global push to build alternative sourcing networks. US drone companies have stepped up their presence in Taiwan, while a Swiss drone maker is now considering relocating production there.

Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corporation (SSFC) is stepping into Taiwan's emerging low-altitude economy, partnering with Taiwan-based drone-data and AI platform Earthbook and Swiss medical logistics company Delivery Glider AG (Jedsy) to develop commercial drone services, initially targeting medical logistics.
Taiwan is planning to deploy drone detection and countermeasure systems at nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure to strengthen its ability to respond to security threats. The Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) is conducting a nuclear emergency response drill at the Second Nuclear Power Plant and surrounding areas from September 8–10.

China's next-generation communications push is beginning to reveal a broader ambition than simply putting faster wireless connections into future smartphones.

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) will hold a joint ministerial meeting in September to discuss subsidy applications submitted by domestic IC design firms for advanced chip development. If the applications are approved, the local IC design sector will receive a boost in its bid to raise the share of IC design industry output value generated by advanced-process chips from 45% to 47%.