Taiwan's Thunder Tiger and AeroVironment to study Switchblade-armed drone boats

Taiwanese unmanned systems maker Thunder Tiger and US loitering munition producer AeroVironment have signed a memorandum of understanding to study arming Thunder Tiger's uncrewed boats and ground vehicles with Switchblade munitions and building drones together in Taiwan. AeroVironment announced the agreement on Wednesday, 14 October 2026, describing it as a framework to explore systems integration, the localisation and co-production of unmanned aircraft in Taiwan, and joint development of future capabilities.

The document was signed on 13 October at Thunder Tiger's stand at the Association of the United States Army annual exhibition in Washington, according to the Central News Agency. Thunder Tiger chairman Chen Kuan-ju and Church Hutton, AeroVironment's senior vice president and chief growth officer, put their names to it in front of a Thunder Tiger Sea Shark 600 drone boat displayed with a four-round Switchblade 300 launcher on its deck.

AeroVironment said the two firms will first assess whether a launcher holding several ready-to-fire Switchblade rounds can be fitted to Thunder Tiger's uncrewed surface vessel, looking at interoperability and possible future demonstrations. Hutton said modern defence requires proven systems to be integrated quickly and produced at scale, and that the company wanted to give customers more options for how unmanned systems are developed, integrated and produced.

Thunder Tiger is offering a Taiwanese production site. The company told Economic Daily News that its new factory in the Dapumei industrial park in Chiayi County is due to be finished by the end of this year and could become a base for joint Taiwan-US production of unmanned systems.

The Switchblade family is already in service with the US Army, the US Marine Corps and Ukrainian forces, and has seen combat in Ukraine. Thunder Tiger noted that Taiwan's army has also bought the smaller Switchblade 300 as part of its push for asymmetric weapons, the Liberty Times reported.

Neither side has committed to a contract. Thunder Tiger said the exact scope of each area of cooperation and how it is carried out will depend on later formal agreements and the necessary approval procedures, and AeroVironment's announcement speaks only of evaluating and exploring opportunities.

The deal was one of two Thunder Tiger signed at the show. It also reached a separate memorandum with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to link Taiwan's drone supply chain with US technology and manufacturing. Economic Daily News noted that Michigan hosts the National All-Domain Warfighting Center, which includes Camp Grayling, the Alpena readiness centre and military airspace used for drone training.

The AeroVironment agreement adds a weapon to a boat Thunder Tiger has been preparing for autonomous operations. In May 2026 the company signed a memorandum with US firm Shield AI to make the Hivemind autonomy software the core of the Sea Shark platform, with integration work, hardware-in-the-loop testing and live sea trials planned, Taiwan News reported.

If the study leads to a contract, Taiwan would gain a locally built sea drone able to carry an American munition its army already fields, the kind of cheap, numerous strike system planners see as a way to threaten a People's Liberation Army landing force crossing the Taiwan Strait. Local assembly would also ease reliance on long US delivery queues, but any co-production of Switchblade technology would still need US export approval, and an MOU alone puts no weapon on the water.