Microsoft Corp is focusing on Taiwanese specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) during its current recruitment season, a Microsoft Taiwan official said on Wednesday.
Michael Chang (張仁烔), chief executive of the new Microsoft AI research and development center in Taiwan, said the company wants to recruit Taiwanese students because of the hard and soft skills that they possess.
“Not only are some Taiwanese skilled at data analysis and coding, but they are also insightful, creative and good team players,” Chang said.
The talent pool is actually one of the main reasons that Microsoft decided to base its AI research and development center in Taiwan, he said.
Microsoft Taiwan president Ken Sun (孫基康) told a news conference on Jan. 10 that the company planned to have a 100-person research team at the center within two years and double that number within five years, with a key focus on Chinese-language input for SwiftKey, user-intent technology and AI forward integration applications.
There are 30 openings at the center this year, and in an effort to encourage more women to work in science, priority would be given to female applicants for interview, the company said.
In a study conducted in partnership with International Data Corp (IDC) and released last month, Microsoft said that about half of Taiwan’s GDP would be derived from digital technologies, including mobile apps, cloud computing, the Internet of Things and AI applications by 2021, up from 6 percent today.
Digital technologies are also expected to raise the nation’s annual economic growth rate by 0.5 percent by 2021, while some 79 percent of existing jobs are expected to be transformed in the next three years, the study found.
Additional reporting by Ted Chen
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained