Brandon Tseng, president and co-founder of Shield AI, a US defense technology company, hosted the first public media briefing in Taipei on the 2nd.
[Reporter Fang Weili/Report from Taipei] Brandon Tseng, co-founder and president of Shield AI, a US defense technology company, said at a media briefing in Taipei today (2nd) that Shield AI had only one employee in Taiwan a year ago. Now it has 11 employees and is expected to increase to 20 in 9 to 12 months. If it develops smoothly in Taiwan, there will be hundreds of employees in Taiwan within 3 to 5 years, and the vast majority will be Taiwanese.
Zeng Guoguang said that Shield AI is mainly promoting four things in Taiwan, including assisting Taiwanese drone manufacturers to build AI pilots with the Hivemind independent system, deepening cooperation with Taiwanese suppliers, introducing V-BAT drones to Taiwan on a large scale, and negotiating cooperation with Taiwan on the X-BAT vertical take-off and landing fighter aircraft under development. He pointed out that Taiwan's local production of drones is expanding from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and he believes that every country will have millions of drones in the future.
In terms of supply chain, Zeng Guoguang said that Shield AI currently purchases about 16% of its hardware materials from Taiwanese manufacturers, and the future goal is to increase to 25%. He explained that 16% refers to V-BAT, which is currently the only mass-produced product, mainly for electronic components such as printed circuit board assembly (PCBA). He is optimistic about composite materials in the future and will also evaluate the expansion of Taiwan's supply chain in new products such as X-BAT. He quoted the company's supply chain director who was in charge of Starlink's supply chain as saying that Taiwan has "the best suppliers in the world"; Shield AI also hired its first international supply chain engineer in Taichung about a month ago.
During the promotion of Hivemind, Zeng Guoguang emphasized that whether it is an enterprise or a government, as long as it is developing drones or has tasks that need to be performed autonomously, Shield AI is willing to assist. He said that Shield AI has invested billions of dollars in software, development tools and infrastructure, and hopes that Taiwan's drone industry will make good use of these investments without having to invest from scratch to jointly build the capabilities required by the Ministry of National Defense to defend Taiwan and deter conflicts. Although Shield AI has no intention of making its own unmanned ground vehicles (UGV), it is also willing to assist the manufacturers of self-made UGVs in software.
According to official information, Hivemind has been integrated into more than 40 unmanned systems. Shield AI signed a contract with the National Sun Yat-sen Academy of Sciences (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in February this year. In August, it announced the completion of autonomous collaborative search verification of three "Jinfeng III" drones and expanded cooperation. The AI autonomous system of the "Hai Shark" unmanned boat in cooperation with Leihu Technology also completed actual testing in Pingtung waters at the end of July.
Hanxiang Aviation Industry signed a cooperation agreement with Shield AI to jointly provide V-BAT support, logistics, maintenance and training in Taiwan. In July this year, it obtained a V-BAT tender from the Coast Guard for 12 aircraft worth approximately 1.2 billion yuan. Zeng Guoguang said that the cooperation with Hanxiang started with V-BAT, and hopes to expand to Hivemind and X-BAT in the future.
Regarding whether the U.S. suspension of arms sales to Taiwan will affect its business in Taiwan, Zeng Guoguang said that Shield AI cooperates with partners, the Coast Guard and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a direct commercial sales manner, and "has not been affected at all by the suspension of (U.S.) Foreign Military Sales (FMS)."
Shield AI was founded in 2015, with more than 2,000 employees worldwide and a company valuation of approximately US$13 billion. The Taipei office will be located in Taipei 101 Building in 2025, making it Shield AI's largest stronghold in Asia. Officials emphasized that they will support Taiwan’s development of sovereign AI through local operations, maintenance and training.
