India’s Drone War Is On, But How Indian Are Its Drones?

Between May 8 and 10, the skies along the India-Pakistan border transformed into a high-stakes battlefield of buzzing rotors and laser-guided strikes.

In what may be the most intense drone deployment yet between the two nuclear neighbours, India accused Pakistan of launching 300 to 400 drones across 36 locations, accompanied by heavy-calibre weapons fired along the Line of Control (LoC).

During the days of the conflict, India used kamikaze-style unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones and loitering munitions (drones fitted with ammunition) and longer-range military drones to target sites in Pakistan and also to intercept dozens of aerial intrusions in real time.

The conflict at the India-Pakistan border, which was once defined by ground incursions and artillery fire, has now evolved. The usage of drones and UAVs signals that this is no longer a boots-on-ground war. It's a war of machines, algorithms, and invisible payloads — where retaliation can come not from battalions but from a swarm of buzzing drones no larger than a desk chair.

The fact that such unmanned aerial strikes unfolded within days of the deadly Pahalgam terror attack, which killed several Indian citizens, raises deeper questions — not just about military preparedness but about India’s ability to build, scale, and deploy advanced drone systems fast enough.

That urgency is compounded by the size of the opportunity: India’s drone sector is currently pegged at $1.33 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a 14% CAGR to $2.28 billion by 2028, according to estimates by consulting firm PwC.

As calls grow louder for the privatisation of military drone production, industry experts and defence officials alike are pushing for greater private sector involvement.

The Missing Pieces Of Self-Reliance

For India to truly achieve self-reliance in drone warfare, domestic firms will need to do more than just assemble UAVs with imported parts — they must develop the propulsion systems, payloads, sensors, and most crucially, the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven autonomy that gives drones their strategic edge.

“When it comes to the current military drone tech system, we have the indigenous capacity to build the airframes locally. The motors are largely Indian. But your real weak spots are sensors and brains,” said Raj Kumar Pandey, CEO of Airbornics Defence & Space Pvt Ltd (ADSL), a drone manufacturer that supplies to multiple defence forces.

“Until we build our own Electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) payloads and onboard intelligence, we’re dependent. And dependence is dangerous in war. You can’t use Chinese or imported thermal cameras and call your drone indigenous,” he added.

To understand where India stands in drone warfare, it’s important to first understand what a combat-grade drone is made of.

There are four critical components: the airframe (the physical body, often made of lightweight composites), the propulsion system (which powers flight, typically electric or turbine engines), the avionics and control systems (flight controllers, GPS, onboard processors), and the payload — which can include EO/IR cameras, radar, RF sensors, communication jammers or explosives, depending on mission type.

A fifth and increasingly critical layer is onboard intelligence — AI systems that help the drone navigate, avoid threats, and make tactical decisions without operator input.

Despite recent advances, India’s domestic manufacturing strength remains uneven across these categories.

“Propulsion and payload are where India has to focus to reduce import-dependence in drone manufacturing," said Captain Vishal Kanwar, managing director of Aerospace & Defence at PwC India

"We don’t yet manufacture gas turbines in the country, which typically go into HALE (High Altitude Long Endurance) UAVs. We also need to increase the indigenous content in electric and diesel propulsion systems. The second area where we need to increase the indigeneous content is payloads, especially SARs (Synthetic Aperture Radars), high-grade EO/IR sensors, Surveillance and targeting systems,” he added.

As India works to localise drone hardware, a parallel frontier is emerging: the race to embed artificial intelligence into unmanned systems. While some Indian firms have begun integrating AI for specific tasks, building true onboard autonomy, especially for military missions, is still a work in progress.

AI Is The Next Battleground

Globally, military drones are no longer just remote-controlled eyes in the sky. Increasingly, they come equipped with AI-driven target recognition, autonomous flight control, and even swarming capabilities, allowing multiple drones to fly coordinated missions with minimal human input. Indian analysts note that drones can now act as forward scouts or decoys to draw out enemy air defences — tasks that require machine learning systems capable of adapting in real time.

Yet experts caution that while AI may help a drone navigate, react, and even engage in combat-like scenarios, the final trigger still lies with a human.

“Even with autonomous unmanned systems coming in, loitering ammunition and weaponised drones always have human in the loop for targeting,” explained Capt Kanwar, of PwC India. “

That distinction between automated capability and strategic judgement, he explained, is not just philosophical — it’s operational.

“The drone might do the edge analysis, to identify & classify targets, but it’s usually the person who makes the final call prior releasing a weapon on a target, because the accountability lies there,” added Capt Kanwar.

Even as Indian defence firms race to integrate AI into drones, there’s one fundamental bottleneck: AI models for military drones are not shareable across countries — or even between companies.

Each AI system must be trained on data generated within the specific mission environments it is meant to operate in: local terrains, sensor feedback, communication protocols, and enemy behaviour. Without this operational data and secure testing infrastructure, AI-enabled autonomy cannot mature beyond limited functions.

“We need to adapt ourselves to change our tactics…all of that is going to be possible when there is intelligence on the edge, when there is some form of capability of updating the algorithm, updating the AI to detect something new, or to take a different action,” said Ankit Mehta, CEO of ideaForge, speaking with The Core Report podcast last month.

Pandey of ADSL also reinforced the concern about fragmented AI development across private players.

“If everybody starts teaching it (drones), the algorithm, the product according to their own mission, then we will be very vulnerable,” he said. “Real teaching should happen at one place so that we are able to create that kind of an impact and contain that knowledge.”

He cited the example of India's automotive sector, where the government created shared testing facilities like the National Centre for Automotive Testing (NCAT) in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar.

“That kind of infrastructure is what the government has to create so that this teaching becomes possible… Today this teaching is not possible. For every private company to do it, they cannot afford it, they cannot sustain it,” he added.

Until India establishes such centrally controlled, defence-grade AI training ecosystems, its drones, no matter how well engineered, will continue to operate with limited intelligence.

Capital is flowing, But Gaps Remain

While India’s drone ecosystem still lacks the infrastructure to fully support AI-led autonomy, the government is beginning to build some of the missing pieces.

As pointed out by Captian Kanwar, under the Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS), India provides dedicated testing facilities for both military and civilian drones that are being developed in the Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridors.

These are aimed at providing secure, controlled environments where manufacturers can test and refine their platforms. In parallel, public funding is also flowing into research and development via the Defence Research & Development Organisation’s (DRDO) co-development programmes with private firms and through the central government’s iDEX initiative, which offers grants of up to Rs 2 crore to promising startups for prototyping.

“Private capital has to come in a big way, and this capital has started to flow into defence and drone manufacturing. It will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of this sector. Whilst the soveriegn investments could fuel prototype development; it is the private capital which drives production and scale,” said Capt. Kanwar of PwC India.

Private capital is indeed coming in, especially in the last two years. The inflection point came post-2021, when a mix of liberalised drone regulations, growing military demand, and the emergence of dual-use applications (agri, infra, security) catalysed venture capital and private equity activity.

As of May 2025, the sector has seen over 100 investment rounds (since 2018), with 2024 standing out as the year with the highest capital inflow, and a growing mix of early-stage and strategic growth capital flowing in from both institutional venture capital firms (VCs) and conglomerates.

The momentum is unmistakable: India is finally assembling the pieces of a homegrown drone warfare ecosystem from airframes, capital, policy support, and early AI. But the gaps remain glaring.

Until India can indigenise critical components like sensors, propulsion, and onboard intelligence—and provide a secure, centralised infrastructure to train military-grade AI—its dream of truly indigenising drones for warfare will remain a patchwork of potential.