The US agency tasked with driving scientific research has launched a program to connect US start-ups with their Taiwanese peers, backing Taiwan’s ambitions to foster key players in strategic sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) and beyond.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) — one of the US federal government’s biggest outfits for funding research — is for the first time sponsoring a series of workshops abroad to help US start-ups work with their overseas counterparts. It chose to begin in Taiwan, which plays an increasingly pivotal role in chips and the technology supply chain.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs is backing the effort, which aims to discover and finance firms exploring “deep tech,” or cutting-edge arenas, including biotechnology and quantum computing.
Photo: Reuters
The US agency intends to expand the program to other nations over time, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan told Bloomberg News.
While many of history’s most successful start-ups — including the likes of Nvidia Corp — began in the US, the bulk of hardware innovation now centers on Asia.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) alone makes about 90 percent of the most advanced logic chips.
The US Department of Commerce has awarded TSMC US$11.6 billion of grants and loans to build three plants in Arizona, underscoring its pivotal industry role.
“You just can’t do everything on your own or within the United States. You have supply chains and other things that are global,” said Michelle Kiang (江夢熊), the cofounder of Impact Science Ventures who helped the US agency conceive the program.
She devised the program with David Horsley, a Northeastern University professor and chip researcher.
“So you want to invest in those relationships early and also in different ways, so that these start-ups out of the United States are able to build a very strong global supply chain as well as a global business to continue to fuel the growth of the US economy,” Kiang said.
Taiwan’s technology start-ups have struggled to raise funds the way their counterparts in Silicon Valley do. The government is looking to change that, National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Tsung-Tsong (吳政忠) said.
One of his missions is to help bridge the gap between academia and industry, not unlike the US foundation. The council is also keen on attracting more overseas talent, such as through a contest for global technology start-ups to be announced next month that would offer the winners a chance to turn their ideas into reality with Taiwanese companies, including TSMC.
Last year, the government launched the Taiwan Chip-based Industrial Innovation Program with a US$10 billion budget over 10 years.
“For Taiwan, manufacturing plays a very important role, but for innovations in different areas, we are still on the starting step,” Wu told Bloomberg News. “We think that if a lot of talent comes to Taiwan, then capital will come.”
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
‘SALAMI-SLICING’: Beijing’s ‘gray zone’ tactics around the Pratas Islands have been slowly intensifying, with the PLA testing Taiwan’s responses and limits, an expert said The Ministry of National Defense yesterday condemned an intrusion by a Chinese drone into the airspace of the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) as a serious disruption of regional peace. The ministry said it detected the Chinese surveillance and reconnaissance drone entering the southwestern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone early yesterday, and it approached the Pratas Islands at 5:41am. The ministry said it immediately notified the garrison stationed in the area to enhance aerial surveillance and alert levels, and the drone was detected in the islands’ territorial airspace at 5:44am, maintaining an altitude outside the effective range of air-defense weaponry. Following
RSS