Taiwan just signed for 2,032 Anduril ALTIUS drones — nearly 7× its previous order.
The award notice appeared on Taiwan's government procurement site on Aug 27 (contract dated July 30): NT$26.95 billion (roughly US$850M), performance period running to June 15, 2033, with four army delivery sites listed. Per earlier disclosures to the Legislative Yuan, the buy covers 1,554 ALTIUS-700M loitering munitions and 478 ALTIUS-600ISR aircraft.
Three details worth noting:
- The award came in below the $1.1B ceiling in December's congressional notification. That is normal: the ceiling represents the maximum releasable scope, and Taiwan's 2024 ALTIUS buy ended up using only about 40% of its $300M ceiling.
- Averaged out, that's roughly US$420K per airframe. It is a package figure that includes warheads, launchers, ground stations, training and logistics, not a unit price.
- Taiwan's first ALTIUS buy (291 × 600M) went from US approval to full delivery in about 21 months. Taiwan's public broadcaster called it the fastest US arms delivery to the island in nearly 20 years. First deliveries of the new batch are expected in Q4.
The order hasn't been without controversy: conflicting accounts of a February live-fire test (the army disputed the worst version), and opposition lawmakers citing reports that some Ukrainian units stopped using the drone. June live-fire drills against sea targets went 12 for 12.
Anduril has spent years pitching weapons "designed for mass production." An order measured in the thousands is the first real test of that thesis at scale. For Taiwan, the metric is simpler: whether deliveries keep arriving, quarter after quarter, through June 2033.
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