Tech firms are increasingly involved in helping the US Department of Defense with everything from cloud computing to artificial intelligence (AI) powered drones. Anduril president Matthew Steckman said Monday that it was providing “one of the main defense systems” against Iran’s low-cost, long-range Shahed drones. Investors and tech companies have “moved from being hostile to skeptical to neutral, from neutral to positive on the idea that Silicon Valley, like every other part of industry, has to support the warfighter,” Karp said. Last year, private equity invested a record US$49 billion in defense technology companies, nearly twice 2024’s US$27 billion, PitchBook said. Funding has never been an issue for the US Department of Defense, which has the world’s largest defense budget by far — US$962 billion for this fiscal year.

Source: Taipei Times March 28, 2026 17:14 UTC