China has banned Skydio, the largest U.S. drone maker, from providing unmanned aerial vehicles to Taiwan’s National Fire Service. Skydio CEO Adam Bry publicly acknowledged the sanctions on Wednesday. “A few weeks ago, China announced sanctions on Skydio for selling drones to Taiwan, where today our only customer is the National Fire Agency,” Bry wrote in a blog post.
As first reported by the Financial Times, the ban has prompted Skydio to look for alternative battery suppliers. Although the company makes its drones in the U.S. and sources many of the components used in them from outside China, Skydio was entirely reliant on a Chinese provider for batteries before Oct. 11, when the country’s government imposed the ban.
According to Bry, the company has “ample stocks” of power cells, but those supplies won’t be enough to prevent near-term rationing, and the alternative suppliers Skydio is working to add “won’t come online until spring next year.” Next, future shipments of the company’s flagship X10 drone (pictured above) will come with only one battery for the time being.
Customers to whom Skydio is contracted to provide X10 drones include the Ukrainian military, which planned to use the UAVs for reconnaissance missions. According to the Financial Times, prior to the sanctions, Ukraine had requested thousands of X10 units.
Skydio’s relationship with Taiwan may be just a pretext for the sanctions. “We suspect Beijing targeted Skydio because it is potentially seen as a competitor to DJI,” a US official told the Financial Times. “If there is a silver lining, we can use this episode to accelerate our work to shift drone supply chains away from China.”
It should be mentioned that DJI has long been in the US government’s crosshairs. In mid-October, the Chinese drone maker filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense over the Pentagon’s decision to designate it as a “Chinese military company.” Earlier in the year, DJI narrowly escaped a national ban when the US Senate released its version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.