Ukraine’s fiber-optic drones get squeezed by AI data center demand

Impervious to battlefield jamming, drones physically connected to human operators by miles of fiber-optic cables have become such a common weapon of war in Ukraine that trees and fields are strewn with tangled cables thinner than fishing lines. But importing such fiber-optic material from China has become more costly as drone warfare’s needs compete with global demand from AI data centers for the same limited supply—and so Ukrainian drone makers have been adapting.

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the Ukrainians have been forced out of necessity to continually develop battlefield innovations involving first-person view (FPV) quadcopter drones and other heavier types of drones.