$ZENA CEO Shaun Passley "Everything about a drone can be changed quickly except where its parts come from"
Blue UAS: Why Trust, Not Just Technology, Matters in Defense Procurement.
The requirements for secure drone supply chains did not appear overnight. We started building towards them years ago. That preparation matters today, because government buyers are looking beyond what drones can do and must always be concerned with how secure and reliably they can be supplied.
Both NDAA-Compliance and Blue UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) Certification Pathway are part of that trust triangulation shift. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) guides annual US defense policy and funding. To be NDAA-compliant, drone technology platforms must not use critical components from restricted manufacturers in countries such as China and Russia. Blue UAS Certification is a curated list of specific commercial drone platforms cleared for Department of Defense Use. Getting on it means passing an independent testing of NDAA compliance, cybersecurity and supply chain integrity.
Both reflect a growing national emphasis on compliance, security and operational resilience.
For drone makers that want to sell to the US government and defense customers, a place on the Blue UAS Cleared List would be the ultimate goal to aim for.
Since then, building a NDAA-compliant supply chain has been a core part of ZenaTech’s vertical integrated strategy.
Why we started early
We don't just ask what the policy says. We also want to understand why it exists.
The U.S. government not only wants to mitigate cybersecurity risk and reduce reliance on foreign-made components. They also need to scale the domestic supply chains to meet the military's production demands and prepare for the modern drone battlefield. Their concern about foreign-manufactured components is not only about espionage but also about availability. Because in a conflict or trade disruption, critical parts are delayed, production slows with them.
That thinking shaped how we built.
Four years ago, we opened our first drone production facility in Dubai due to its efficiency in transport and logistics and business climate. In 2024, after participating in a trade mission in Taiwan, we set up our Spider Vision Sensors Manufacturing Facility there. The objective was to design and manufacture our in-house NDAA-compliant components such as printed circuit boards (PCBs), cameras and sensors to give us control over components’ cost, quality and schedule while leveraging Taiwan’s Asian ingenuity and U.S. friendly country advantage. In December 2024, we expanded our sales office space and moved to a small manufacturing and assembly facility in Arizona with an objective to produce “Made in America” drones. This year, we're expanding into a larger facility in Mesa, Arizona to produce US made drones at scale.
Where we stand
We are running four drones through the Blue UAS Pathway.
Phases one and two are complete for 3 drones (ZenaDrone 1000, IQ Nano, IQ Square), covering application onboarding and submission of the consolidated hardware bill of materials (HBOM) in the Blue UAS certification program administered through the DoD and the drone and robotics industry association, AUVSI.
The certification progress is well underway. Penetration testing will follow, assessing system resilience, encryption integrity and operational security under simulated adversarial conditions.
Final Blue UAS status remains subject to successful completion of the remaining certification phases and the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) review.
Why the DCMA move changed things
In July 2025, following the Secretary of Defense's memo on Drone Dominance, DIU recognized AUVSI Green UAS certification, broadly known as the certification for commercial and non-military drones as secure, safe, and cyber-compliant, as an authorized pathway to achieving Blue UAS Cleared Status, named AUVSI among its first third-party Recognized Assessors. The result was a more efficient, distributed and scalable route for domestic manufacturers.
Administration of the Blue UAS Cleared List transitioned from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) in December 2025. This handoff suggests a priority shift: from a one-time technology review to an ongoing compliance process.
We built toward the latter before it became an increasingly visible procurement priority.
The capability that takes time to build
This is where supply-chain preparation becomes a business issue, not just a compliance issue.
You can cut your price in an hour. You can update your firmware in a month. Yet you cannot build a resilient supply chain, develop secure systems, and document every critical component retroactively. Those capabilities accumulate over time, and they cannot be created the moment a procurement opportunity appears.
It paid off when trade and procurement rules changed.
In August 2026 the President imposed 100% tariffs on certain drones and components. Companies on the Blue UAS Cleared List as of September 2, 2026, had their effective date deferred to February 2027. Importantly, ZenaTech’s qualifying products and components from Taiwan are eligible for preferential tariff treatment of no more than 15%, compared with tariffs of up to 100% for covered products from countries without preferential treatment such as China.
The value of eligibility lies not only at the point of procurement, but also when the regulatory and trade environment is turbulent.
Which brings me to the only advantage here that's genuinely durable. Time.
At ZenaTech, we view defense not as a short-cycle market but as a long-investment domain where trust, compliance, supply chain integrity, and execution ultimately determine who scales.
We are on the final stretch toward certification and look forward to delivering scalable and mission-critical drone solutions to government and defense customers in the future through sustainable contracts.
The rules will keep changing. We'd rather build for where they're heading than scramble to catch up.
https://x.com/ShaunPassleyPhD/status/2102755338432770173
Blue UAS: Why Trust, Not Just Technology, Matters in Defense Procurement.
The requirements for secure drone supply chains did not appear overnight. We started building towards them years ago. That preparation matters today, because government buyers are looking beyond what drones can do and must always be concerned with how secure and reliably they can be supplied.
Both NDAA-Compliance and Blue UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) Certification Pathway are part of that trust triangulation shift. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) guides annual US defense policy and funding. To be NDAA-compliant, drone technology platforms must not use critical components from restricted manufacturers in countries such as China and Russia. Blue UAS Certification is a curated list of specific commercial drone platforms cleared for Department of Defense Use. Getting on it means passing an independent testing of NDAA compliance, cybersecurity and supply chain integrity.
Both reflect a growing national emphasis on compliance, security and operational resilience.
For drone makers that want to sell to the US government and defense customers, a place on the Blue UAS Cleared List would be the ultimate goal to aim for.
Since then, building a NDAA-compliant supply chain has been a core part of ZenaTech’s vertical integrated strategy.
Why we started early
We don't just ask what the policy says. We also want to understand why it exists.
The U.S. government not only wants to mitigate cybersecurity risk and reduce reliance on foreign-made components. They also need to scale the domestic supply chains to meet the military's production demands and prepare for the modern drone battlefield. Their concern about foreign-manufactured components is not only about espionage but also about availability. Because in a conflict or trade disruption, critical parts are delayed, production slows with them.
That thinking shaped how we built.
Four years ago, we opened our first drone production facility in Dubai due to its efficiency in transport and logistics and business climate. In 2024, after participating in a trade mission in Taiwan, we set up our Spider Vision Sensors Manufacturing Facility there. The objective was to design and manufacture our in-house NDAA-compliant components such as printed circuit boards (PCBs), cameras and sensors to give us control over components’ cost, quality and schedule while leveraging Taiwan’s Asian ingenuity and U.S. friendly country advantage. In December 2024, we expanded our sales office space and moved to a small manufacturing and assembly facility in Arizona with an objective to produce “Made in America” drones. This year, we're expanding into a larger facility in Mesa, Arizona to produce US made drones at scale.
Where we stand
We are running four drones through the Blue UAS Pathway.
Phases one and two are complete for 3 drones (ZenaDrone 1000, IQ Nano, IQ Square), covering application onboarding and submission of the consolidated hardware bill of materials (HBOM) in the Blue UAS certification program administered through the DoD and the drone and robotics industry association, AUVSI.
The certification progress is well underway. Penetration testing will follow, assessing system resilience, encryption integrity and operational security under simulated adversarial conditions.
Final Blue UAS status remains subject to successful completion of the remaining certification phases and the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) review.
Why the DCMA move changed things
In July 2025, following the Secretary of Defense's memo on Drone Dominance, DIU recognized AUVSI Green UAS certification, broadly known as the certification for commercial and non-military drones as secure, safe, and cyber-compliant, as an authorized pathway to achieving Blue UAS Cleared Status, named AUVSI among its first third-party Recognized Assessors. The result was a more efficient, distributed and scalable route for domestic manufacturers.
Administration of the Blue UAS Cleared List transitioned from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) in December 2025. This handoff suggests a priority shift: from a one-time technology review to an ongoing compliance process.
We built toward the latter before it became an increasingly visible procurement priority.
The capability that takes time to build
This is where supply-chain preparation becomes a business issue, not just a compliance issue.
You can cut your price in an hour. You can update your firmware in a month. Yet you cannot build a resilient supply chain, develop secure systems, and document every critical component retroactively. Those capabilities accumulate over time, and they cannot be created the moment a procurement opportunity appears.
It paid off when trade and procurement rules changed.
In August 2026 the President imposed 100% tariffs on certain drones and components. Companies on the Blue UAS Cleared List as of September 2, 2026, had their effective date deferred to February 2027. Importantly, ZenaTech’s qualifying products and components from Taiwan are eligible for preferential tariff treatment of no more than 15%, compared with tariffs of up to 100% for covered products from countries without preferential treatment such as China.
The value of eligibility lies not only at the point of procurement, but also when the regulatory and trade environment is turbulent.
Which brings me to the only advantage here that's genuinely durable. Time.
At ZenaTech, we view defense not as a short-cycle market but as a long-investment domain where trust, compliance, supply chain integrity, and execution ultimately determine who scales.
We are on the final stretch toward certification and look forward to delivering scalable and mission-critical drone solutions to government and defense customers in the future through sustainable contracts.
The rules will keep changing. We'd rather build for where they're heading than scramble to catch up.
https://x.com/ShaunPassleyPhD/status/2102755338432770173
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