Defence Minister Judith Collins has been at the 2025 international DSEI defence sales expo in London. (File photo, from 2023 DSEI expo).
Photo: AFP/ Daniel Leal
The Pentagon’s go-to killer drone-maker, Anduril, has cemented a big deal in Australia and has come visiting New Zealand.
Meantime, Defence Minister Judith Collins has been in London, where drones are the first order of the day at the UK’s biggest defence expo.
“Drones Lead UK Military Strategy as DSEI 2025 Opens” was one headline.
Tauranga cargo-lifting dronemaker Syos, which inked a near $70m deal with Britain earlier this year, is at the fair beside the Thames.
Syos met with Collins in July, her ministerial diary showed. A few days later, she had a video conference with Pentagon favourite Anduril, named after a sword in The Lord of the Rings and led by a billionaire who prefers jandals and shorts, Palmer Luckey.
Anduril has emerged out of Silicon Valley to team up with NZ citizen Peter Thiel’s data-harvesting firm Palantir and leverage close links to the Trump administration to win massive drone and AI deals with the US and its partners.
An expo attendee in front of a drone displayed at the 2023 DSEI, in London.
Photo: AFP/ Daniel Leal
Fast and furious
This week, Anduril signed a $180m deal with the US army for virtual display headsets, at the same time as it was doing a $1.9 billion deal for dozens of Ghost Shark drones for the Australian Navy.
The joint Anduril-navy project across the Tasman went from concept to deal in three years, very fast in defence terms, where the ‘Valley of Death‘ – the lag between concept and an actual order – is often discussed.
The New Zealand Defence Force is also trying to get on the fasttrack with its $12b Defence Capability Plan.
Government unveils $12 billion Defence Capability Plan
While Collins has backed that, Budget 2025 only allocated money for aerial counter-drone systems, not for drones themselves. While $2 billion-plus will go into five US maritime helicopters, the drones to accompany those – at extra cost – will have to wait.
Cost pressures or new kit? The Budget dilemma for the Defence Force
‘Changing the character of warfare’
In London, Collins signed an agreement that explicitly mentioned drones.
Industrial and tech collaboration with the UK would include “advancing drone capabilities” said the joint statement updating the decade-old NZ-UK defence co-operation agreement.
NZ and UK sign new defence co-operation statement
As well as talking about a “deeper partnership between our navies”, it advocated for collective experimentation in the AI-heavy area of battlefield command-and-control, notably the US-led Project Convergence Capstone, which won special mention. NZ joined Capstone last year.
“Rapid technological advances are changing the character of warfare,” said the statement.
Collins witnessed this in Ukraine just days before, where she went in and out quietly – by train – to Kyiv, with NZDF chief Tony Davies.
Judith Collins visit gives Ukraine ‘enormous strength’
Judith Collins earlier met with Ukrainian Minister of Defence Denys Shmyhal.
Photo: Supplied
Ukraine called it a “very meaningful meeting”.
“Briefed our partners on Ukraine’s defense needs, particularly on scaling up drones’ production, as Russia renewed systematic strikes on our energy infrastructure,” it said.
Back in London, the New Zealand Society said in an online post that Collins and Syos were doing the country proud, both in Ukraine and at the London defence show.
“The real growth area is in the tech and that tech will permeate throughout the show,” it said.
‘Undersea warfare leader’
The drone hype is extensive and building.
“The UK military is ramping up its drone programs… the effort, backed by billions in government funding, draws directly from Ukraine’s experience,” said one report.
The London show highlighted the explosion in choices for drone-shoppers like the NZDF, but some of those choices are difficult ones. For instance, how to balance Collins’ push for a “more lethal” defence force, up against the government’s international commitments to try to stem arms proliferation?
What about the use of drone technology developed or deployed in the Gaza war?
The companies are not waiting for militaries to decide, but spreading their reach.
In London, Anduril is exhibiting alongside fellow American company, Ultra Maritime, which describes itself as an “an undersea warfare leader”.
In 2022, Anduril opened offices in Australia, where Ultra has been for a while.
“We’re basically on a war footing,” The New Zealand Herald quoted Anduril last month.
‘It’s terrifying’
In 2023, another exhibitor, Smart-shooter, opened subsidiary Smash Australia, but is based in Israel.
In London, Smart-shooter was expected to unveil a smart sight for heavy machine guns that taps into AI to shoot down drones. It has also worked to add smart-sights to flying drones.
Thousands of its sights for smaller guns were being used by Israeli soldiers.
“The current war in Gaza has provided a meaningful operational validation of the system,” said sponsored content in June on the Haaretz website, that claimed the sights redefined “precision” against ground and air targets, while helping reduce civilian casualties.
“We see that, with the system, even less-experienced reservists achieve the same hit rates as highly trained soldiers,” it said.
Smart-shooter sights on rifles were tested by UK-US forces in July in Project Flytrap, dubbed a “live-fire laboratory for killing drones”, using “proven technologies being used by Ukraine”.
“It’s terrifying, watching the drones counter each other,” one soldier told The Wall Street Journal.
Budget 2025 puts the NZDF in the market for such counter-drone systems.
Anduril and Smart-shooter were approached for comment. Collins was travelling and unavailable for comment.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.