A Taiwanese start-up developer of a positioning system for uncrewed vehicles has secured a US$5 million purchase order at a conference in France, the Ministry of Science and Technology said yesterday, expressing the hope that Taiwan and France will continue to deepen technological collaboration.
According to its Web site, the Viva Technology conference, which was held in Paris from Thursday until yesterday, attracted nearly 9,000 start-ups from around the world and 1,900 investors.
Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Hsu Yu-chin (許有進) on Wednesday led a delegation of 10 local enterprises to the biggest start-up expo in Europe, the ministry said in a statement.
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It was the first time the ministry set up a national pavilion at an important start-up gathering in Europe, it said.
The iTech team led by National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering professor Mao Shau-gang (毛紹綱) secured the purchase order from a French electric car maker on the first day of the expo, the ministry said.
The team combined Mao’s accumulated research on metamaterials and antennae with communication techniques and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop positioning systems for uncrewed aerial vehicles and self-driving cars, an institute newsletter said.
The delegation also included developers of a virtual-reality camera, an AI-based automotive assistant, a precise blood measurement technology and a driver fatigue monitoring system, the ministry said.
The ministry in June last year inaugurated the Taiwan Tech Arena incubator in Taipei, which has cultivated more than 100 start-ups, Hsu said at the launch of Taiwan’s pavilion on Thursday.
France is Taiwan’s second-largest technological partner and relations between the two nations have continued to deepen since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016, Representative to France Wu Chih-chung (吳志中) was quoted as saying by the ministry.
Taiwanese airlines purchased 14 A350 passenger jets from Airbus’ France-based civil airplane business two years ago, 17 more aircraft last year and an additional 29 jets last week, Wu said, adding that Taiwanese and French start-ups are also expected to increase collaboration.
The delegation also received an invitation from the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade to attend the global ICT Spring tech conference on Tuesday and Wednesday, the science ministry said.
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