Drone maker hurt by U.S.-China rift, opening door to rivals
Skateboarders, surfers and mountain bikers used to be the target customers for California startup Skydio, a maker of highend drones that can home in on people and capture their movements on video all by themselves. Now police officers, firefighters and soldiers are interested in the self-flying machines.
That’s partly because U.S. national security concerns about the world’s dominant consumer drone-maker, China-based DJI, have upended the market for small drones and opened the door to lesser-known companies pitching applications for government agencies and big businesses.
Companies like Skydio are also tapping into a technological revolution that could do away with the need for human pilots to put drones through each one of their paces. Instead, advanced artificial intelligence is starting to power drones that can follow humans and other targets on their own. Robotics experts say Skydio’s cutting-edge AI makes its drones appealing as reconnaissance tools, as does its made-in-America vibe.
“There’s a lot of anti-China rhetoric,” said Vijay Kumar, a drone entrepreneur and the dean of engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.
Years before President Donald Trump cited spying concerns in pushing to ban popular Chineseowned apps TikTok and WeChat and ratcheting up sanctions against Chinese telecom giant Huawei, Shenzhen-based DJI was already under close watch as a potential national security threat.
A document from U.S. customs authorities alleged in 2017 that DJI drones likely provided China with access to U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data. DJI denied the allegation. As political concerns grew, its rivals have increasingly seized on the opportunity to pile on the anti-DJI sentiment.
“Do you trust DJI drones?” said promotional material teasing the launch of a new product this summer from French dronemaker Parrot. “Don’t trust Chinese drones,” said another Parrot promotion.
“They’re the dominant incumbent and we’re the scrappy American underdog,” Skydio CEO Adam Bry said in an interview. “There’s a real opportunity for
U.S. companies to lead the way.”
The Defense Department in August gave a seal of approval to Skydio, Parrot and three other firms to supply U.S.-manufactured drones to agencies across the federal government. “We need an alternative to Chinese-made small drones,” Mike Brown, director of the Defense Innovation Unit, said in a statement.
DJI has referred to U.S. actions against it as “part of a politicallymotivated agenda” to reduce market competition and support American technology “regardless of its merits.”
The attacks on DJI’s reputation and bans on its use in the military and some other federal agencies have coincided with a lull in
can be an issue for lowincome families and those with particularly high internet needs. He suggested the example of a family with three school-age children engaging in remote learning while their parents are working from home via video conferencing and downloading and uploading documents throughout the day.
“Their broadband speed requirements will far exceed what a single person working from home will need,” Cohen said. “That higher speed, if available, will come at a higher monthly cost.”
Most major state providers
like Comcast and Cox have low-income options, he said, but some come with conditions and usually a lower download and upload speed.
BroadbandNow says only about a third of state residents have access to a monthly internet plan costing $60 or less. That is more than 20 percent lower than the national average of 51.5 percent of residents who have a low-priced internet plan available to them.
In late July, Gov. Ned Lamont launched the Everybody Learns initiative, a $43.5 million program to obtain 50,000 laptops for students, fund a year of access to at-home internet for 60,000 students, and create free public hotspots at
200 community sites across the state. Many of the state’s major providers have agreed to participate in the program.
Funding comes from the state’s portion of the federal CARES Act, the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund, and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund.
BroadbandNow noted Connecticut’s access-equality issue in an update on its website this month.
“For the most part, Connecticut’s population has fairly equal access to highspeed internet,” it said. “However, a digital divide remains between those who have access to a fast, lowpriced wired connection and those who do not.”