Intel Corp chief executive Paul Otellini yesterday announced new and expanded partnerships with the Taiwanese government, education system and industry to accelerate the nation’s competitiveness as the leading center of innovation for global information technology.
Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker by revenue, will provide technical and financial support to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Education, National Science Council (NSC) and -Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信) to create and capitalize on computing business opportunities.
“The new era of computing is creating exciting opportunities for innovation and growth,” Otellini said in Taipei before signing collaborative agreements with Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Hwang Jung-chiou (黃重球).
The agreements aim to advance Taiwan’s effort to capitalize on new growth opportunities in the computing industry, such as cloud computing, and to focus on research to facilitate the commercialization of embedded computing solutions and developing parallel computing engineering skills among university students, Otellini said.
“Creating a seamless, interoperable experience across all computing devices is an exciting opportunity for Intel and Taiwan to pursue together,” he said. “The joint projects will extend a partnership that has long fueled IT innovation globally and positioned Taiwan as a global technology powerhouse.”
Taiwan’s government has identified cloud computing as a key growth opportunity for the IT industry.
Intel will provide technical support for the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ cloud computing industry development initiative. The program is to transform the nation’s IT industry from global supplier of -Internet-connected devices to producer of the world’s cloud computing software, services and hardware, Otellini said.
The support will include providing Inventec Corp (英業達) and Wistron Corp (緯創) with the latest technologies, training and technical resources as they develop cloud data center offerings.
CHT chairman Lu Shyue-ching (呂學錦) said his company would help accelerate cloud computing innovation by joining the Open Data Center Alliance, an independent industry task force aimed at promoting cloud architecture industry standards and strengthening international collaboration.
Intel will provide engineering resources to help CHT develop and commercialize cloud computing architecture and usage models, Lu said. Intel’s engineering support will include technical workshops and consulting on areas that include cloud technologies and data center power management practices.
Chunghwa Telecom and Intel look forward to working together to establish a strong ecosystem of cloud computing,” Lu said.
Intel and the NSC will also work with one local university to establish a research center to strengthen Taiwan’s academic position in the emerging connected embedded devices segment, NSC Minister Lee Lou-chuang (李羅權) said.
The three parties intend to invest up to NT$750 million (US$24.33 million) over the next three to five years to set up an international research center at the participating university, Lee said.
The research will focus on devices connected over local and wide area networks and cloud-based applications, he added.
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