Zipline delivers blood, vaccines, and other medical supplies to hospitals and health facilities in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Rwanda, where it made its first delivery in 2016. According to the company, its drones fly four to five times as many daily flights as Ethiopian Airlines, the continent’s largest commercial airline.
Under the full scope of its agreement with the State Department, Zipline said it could reach as many as 130 million people and triple the number of facilities it serves, from 5,000 to 15,000. Jeremy Lewin, undersecretary of state for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs and religious freedom, said the deal is intended to “catalyze private capital, incentivize local buy-in, and champion American businesses.”
“With modest U.S. capital investment support, these five countries will become responsible for maintaining and continuing to invest in a transformative American-built health commodities supply chain network,” Lewin said in a statement.
The State Department money will fund the expansion of Zipline’s artificial intelligence and robotics infrastructure but only after the company secures long-term commitments from African nations. Countries will pay Zipline up to $400 million in utilization fees. Rwanda is expected to be the first.
According to Zipline, the pay-for-performance structure is “designed to be easily replicated,” implying this won’t be the only such deal the State Department pursues.
Zipline owns the world’s largest autonomous drone delivery network. Its drones have completed more than 1.8 million on-demand deliveries since debuting in 2016.
The drones are designed to cut down delivery times, particularly in rural areas. Per Zipline, in some locations it serves in Africa, health facilities receive deliveries on average 13 days after ordering. With drones, it said, that can fall to just 30 minutes.
Zipline’s Platform 1 (P1) system is optimized for long-range deliveries, with Zips—the company’s term for its drones—capable of flying 120 miles roundtrip. P1 Zips can carry up to 4 pounds and cruise at about 60 mph. Deliveries are floated to the ground from about 60-80 feet up using a parachute mechanism, with accuracy down to about two parking spaces.
Research has shown that the drones can help lower maternal death rates, increase stocks of medicine and vaccines, and raise immunization rates.
The State Department may envision Zipline’s services as a partial substitute for programs previously administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which was dismantled in July.
“Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a July blog post.
Other drone delivery providers that are exploring humanitarian or medical delivery—including Wing and Amazon Prime Air—may be candidates to receive similar deals. Those companies also stand to benefit from a June executive order that directs federal agencies to add manufacturing and export protections for U.S. drone manufacturers.
The flight hours these providers accumulate abroad could translate to more robust operations domestically.
Zipline, for example, is growing a commercial U.S. business in partnership with Walmart and others.
The company’s core U.S. operations are in Texas, where it is among the drone delivery providers pioneering the use of non crewed aircraft system (UAS) traffic management (UTM)—essentially, air traffic control for autonomous drones. It also has smaller operations in Arkansas and Washington state.
For home delivery, Zipline deploys a different system, Platform 2 (P2), that uses a tether to deposit orders in spaces as small as a patio table. P2 Zips can carry up to 8 pounds flying as fast as 70 mph, with a service radius of 10 miles. Unlike P1, which operates as a hub-and-spoke model, P2 drones can fly between docks in response to demand, forming a network.