A visitor sits on a quadruped robot designed for inspection tasks at the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, AFP
RIVAL BLOCS: Kazakhstan has signed on to the US’ and China’s AI frameworks; a US official said it was difficult to see how a country can be trusted while in a competing pact The US is preparing to tell dozens of countries they must pick sides in the artificial intelligence (AI) race with China, warning they would be excluded from a US-led AI coalition if they also sign up for Beijing’s competing framework, according to a US official and an internal draft reviewed by Reuters. Washington last year launched the Pax Silica initiative aimed at securing supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals, amid a fierce technology rivalry with Beijing. About two dozen countries have joined, including Kazakhstan, a key potential source of critical minerals that has also joined China’s coalition,
Taiwan and other technology democracies have a "golden but narrowing" three-to-five-year window to lay the foundations for an advanced robotics supply chain outside China, particularly for humanoid robots, a Taiwan-based researcher said yesterday. A report released on Monday by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) examines China-West competition in physical artificial intelligence (AI) and Taiwan’s potential role in developing alternatives to Chinese robot supply chains. Humanoid robots remain unproven, meaning China’s lead in shipments currently has a limited impact on the real economy, Nathanael Cheng (鄭秉信), a policy analyst in the DSET Economic Security Program, said in a
Outbound investments approved by Taiwan’s government surged more than 200 percent from the year before during the January to July period largely due to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) spending heavily overseas, the Ministry of Economic Affairs reported on Monday. The Department of Investment Review approved US$61.26 billion of outbound investment in 395 applications during the first seven months of this year, up 208.43 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement. Significant growth came after TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, secured approval to raise capital investments by US$20 billion in its US subsidiary TSMC Arizona Corp,
Shares in King Slide Works Co (川湖科技), a supplier of rail kits used in servers, rose by the 10 percent daily limit to close at a record high of NT$13,750 yesterday, making the company’s founder and chairman Lin Tsung-chi (林聰吉) Taiwan’s richest person for the time being. According to Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, Lin’s net worth increased by US$1.8 billion to US$19.5 billion yesterday, surpassing Yageo Corp (國巨) founder and chairman Pierre Chen (陳泰銘), who has a net worth of US$17.4 billion, to become the richest person in Taiwan and rank 140th globally. The stock’s rally came as the company on Friday