Nvidia Corp’s first artificial intelligence (AI) research and development center in Asia, which is being built in Taiwan, is 40 percent complete, Department of Industrial Technology (DOIT) Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) said.
The five-year project, which was started last year, seeks to hire 1,000 employees, build a supercomputer, named "Taipei-1," and work with Taiwan’s industry and research institutions to develop AI technologies and products, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Chiou told CNA that as the project enters its second year, up to 400 R&D-related employees have been employed.
Photo: EPA-EFE
On the hardware side, the installment of "Taipei-1" was completed at the end of last year, he said.
Asked about the supercomputer, Chiou said it consists of 64 Nvidia DGX H100, with each DGX H100 composing eight H100 graphic processing units (GPUs).
A GPU is a computer chip that has overtaken the traditional central processing unit (CPU) to become the most important computing technology in the AI era.
As of last year, H100 GPU was considered Nvidia’s most advanced — and the world’s most powerful GPU — powering Meta Platforms Inc and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for generative AI training and inference.
The supercomputer also has 32 OVX computing systems, which are designed to build 3D virtual worlds and immersive digital twin simulations that have wide applications such as product development for manufacturing or better personalized care in healthcare.
As per the agreement with the ministry, a quarter of Taipei-1’s computing power will be provided to Taiwanese companies and research institutions to use for free for six weeks from July this year to February 2027 upon application, Chiou said.
He said the application, which closes at the end of this month, is open to all kinds of institutions, companies and start-ups for non-commercial use.
The supercomputer is situated in Kaohsiung, he added.
Meanwhile, Chiou denied a local report claiming a "second" R&D center is to be built.
"Nvidia’s R&D center is not one single building, so there is no question of a ’second’ one, as the company’s R&D projects are placed around the country," Chiou said.
According to the department’s Web site, Nvidia’s AI R&D center project was approved in December 2021, with the ministry providing a subsidy of NT$6.7 billion (US$206.7 million) and the company investing NT$17.6 billion.
Nvidia setting up its first AI R&D center in Asia in Taiwan is part of the government’s "Supreme A+ Program" — initiated in 2020 — to attract global pioneers in innovation to invest in state-of-the-art technologies in semiconductors, communications and AI in Taiwan.
US company Micron Technology Inc was granted a subsidy of NT$4.7 billion in 2021 under the same program for a project that focuses on developing advanced memory technologies.
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