The Cabinet yesterday approved a four-year science and technology development program to boost the digital economy and to use “smart” technologies to meet various challenges facing the nation, such as an aging population and climate change.
The National Science and Technology Development Plan outlines four major categories of development from this year to 2020 to help the nation adapt to changing industrial trends: innovating and recreating economic momentum with digital technologies; developing “smart” assistive living technologies and industries; cultivating and attracting talent; and building a thriving research and innovation ecosystem.
To achieve those goals, the Ministry of Science and Technology is to build an “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robot Maker Space” over a four-year period with a NT$2 billion (US$65.8 million) budget, which is to become a center for innovative economics, ministry officials told a news conference in Taipei.
Digital technologies are to be used to meet the challenges of an aging population, a low fertility rate, outbreaks of contagious disease, extreme weather and food safety issues, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Su Fong-chin (蘇芳慶) said.
Renewable energy and disaster prevention would also be a major focus of the program, including a smart power grid project to boost the share of renewable energy production to 20 percent by 2025 and the development of a disaster prevention system.
The program is also to allocate funds to retain international talent and offer scholarships for young researchers to study in California’s Silicon Valley.
It includes the proposed “Yushan Scholar” project, which would offer a subsidy of up to NT$5 million per year to selected academics and researchers on top of their annual salary.
The ministry plans to amend the Fundamental Science and Technology Act (科學技術基本法) and other relevant laws to allow academics and researchers to work on extracurricular projects and receive dividends from their patents to boost innovation.
“Technological advantage is key to a nation’s competitiveness, and Taiwan has to utilize its technological edge to speed up scientific and technological development,” Premier William Lai (賴清德) said.
The “five plus two” industrial development project — an initiative to develop an “Asian Silicon Valley,” biomedicine, “green” energy, “smart” machinery and a national defense industry, as well as a new agricultural model and a circular economy — is based on the nation’s advanced semiconductor and information and communication technology industries, Lai said.
The relationship between the “five plus two” project and those industries is reciprocal and the government will not ignore those industries, Lai added, after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) complained about the focus on developing the “five plus two” industries.
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