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Taiwan and Poland’s Drone Industry Convergence

Insights from Dorota Maczuga

Taiwan’s government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance (TEDIBOA) and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems (PISB) sign an MoU on building a joint drone supply chain, Dec. 12, 2025.

The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dorota Maczuga – co-founder of Polylocal, a Taiwan-EU B2B platform based in Kraków, Poland – is the 516th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.” 

Identify the factors for cooperation between Polish and Taiwanese drone companies.

The main reason is the growing convergence of Poland’s and Taiwan’s national security strategies, driven largely by one factor: Ukraine. Ukraine’s role as a key driver in the development of drone-powered military technology is inseparable from Poland’s position as NATO’s eastern flank and main logistical hub for military aid to its fighting neighbor. In Taiwan, it has become a common narrative to compare Ukraine’s situation vis-à-vis Russia with Taiwan’s own security challenges posed by China. China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed how Poland views Taiwan, while Poland’s support for Ukraine has also changed how Taiwan perceives Poland. From being a blind spot on the map, Poland has emerged as an unexpected ally for Taiwan within the EU, while Taiwan has become an increasingly important partner for Poland in the Pacific. Both Poland and Taiwan have large and increasing defense spending. Poland’s defense expenditure has reached 4.8 percent of GDP, giving it the highest relative defense budget in NATO. In Taiwan, defense spending reached 3.3 percent of GDP in 2026, and President Lai Ching-te has committed to raising it further to 5 percent by 2030. The current geopolitical situation has raised concerns about overreliance on Chinese supplies in the defense sector, increasing demand for non-Chinese components. These concerns are based on real examples. In 2024 and 2025, Beijing restricted exports of critical drone components to Ukraine. At the same time, Chinese exports of components to Russia – including fiber-optic cables and lithium-ion batteries – increased sharply from mid-2025. This is why Ukraine has fundamentally changed how Taiwan views its own military doctrine. President Tsai Ing-wen (2016–2024) initiated the elevation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a core element of national defense. Taiwan has banned the use of Chinese drones by government agencies and promoted exports of “non-red” UAVs to scale up its domestic industry. Poland is pursuing a similar ambition, aiming to become a regional power in the drone industry. The Subcarpathian region in southeastern Poland, centered around Rzeszów, is set to establish Drone Valley, a national center for the certification and development of UAVs, at a cost of approximately 135 million Polish złoty (32 million euro). It was announced in early 2026. Among other challenges, Poland’s small but growing drone industry faces one critical dependency: foreign imports of electronics. Taiwan’s excellence in ICT makes it an ideal partner for sourcing core components such as flight control systems. Last year, Poland became the world’s biggest buyer of Taiwanese drones, accounting for almost 60 percent of Taiwan’s total drone exports. The convergence between Poland and Taiwan on drones is therefore political and practical. Explain the concept of “compliance-as-a-product” in the context of EU-U.S.-Taiwan defense and dual-use technology stack. In simple words, it means buying a ready solution that already meets security standards, instead of having to go through compliance process by yourself. In both U.S. and EU, the........

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