Times Radio Breakfast: Drone shortages and the China supply chain risk

My research really is focused on the hardware and the material side. So you need, for example, permanent magnets for motors. They are really, really hard to get with non-Chinese supplies, and a lot more expensive. You also need germanium... for night vision systems. You want your drone in many cases to have that capability. These are really volatile parts of the supply chain. The prices spike really rapidly, it makes procurement really complex. And the most important thing really is that China has actually sanctioned some Western companies."