Taipei: Taiwan should look beyond its role as a global supplier of advanced semiconductors and become a major weapons supplier to shore up its own defenses and those of other countries, Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey said in an interview on Thursday. In Taipei for the Computex trade show, which ended Friday, Luckey was asked by CNA about a range of issues, from how Taiwan could ramp up its production of drones-Anduril's specialty-to his views on doing business with China and dealing with its practices.

According to Focus Taiwan, in a world where autonomous systems are becoming increasingly important in modern warfare, Taiwan faces a major gap in its domestic supply chain for specialized drone components, such as AI imaging modules and flight control systems and modules. Taiwan's government has launched an initiative to manufacture critical components it currently imports by March 2027, but Luckey felt Taiwan could aim bigger to boost its lagging production capacity in this area.

Luckey suggested that Taiwan scale up its autonomous system capacity and focus more on exporting its production. "Taiwan is not ever going to need enough arms purely for itself to justify a large defense market or a large weapons market," he said. He proposed that Taiwan should be making 10 times more weapons than it needs for itself, which would benefit the economy, international relations, and its own weapons stockpiles. "In wartime, maybe you can just take all that capacity and keep it internal," he added.

Developing such an industry might also give Taiwan a second defensive "shield" in addition to the silicon shield. Luckey noted, "The reason why so many countries care so much about Taiwan is because of their critical dependency on [Taiwan's] semiconductors. But what if they could be dependent on [Taiwan] also for arms?" He further emphasized the importance of making Taiwan indispensable to the rest of the world in various ways, including defense items.

Luckey, who has deep connections to Taiwan developed during his time with Oculus VR, highlighted the critical role of drones in Taiwan's defense strategy. He underlined the necessity for Taiwan to develop asymmetric capabilities against China, focusing on highly mobile and relatively inexpensive systems. Luckey cited the recent successful test-firing of Altius-600M anti-armor drones in Yilan County as an example of Taiwan's potential in this area.

Luckey's business focus has also been on the China threat, launching a "China 2027" plan five years ago. In December 2025, Beijing sanctioned 20 U.S. defense companies and 10 senior executives, including Luckey and Anduril, for their involvement in arms sales to Taiwan. Despite these sanctions, Luckey remains unfazed, treating the sanction notice as an award.

He also raised concerns about China's practices in stealing technology, sharing personal experiences of having hotel rooms broken into and product samples stolen during visits to Shenzhen. Luckey accused Chinese companies of providing him with samples containing wiretaps, a practice he claims is overlooked by the Chinese government.